I used to work for a home builder. He had many model homes. Some of them were $500,000+ and had no dining room. I could not believe anyone in their right mind would want a home (much less a $5000,000 home) that had no dining room.
For example, where do you serve company or have Thanksgiving diner if you don’t have a dining room?
We use our very large formal living room, which we intentionally keep sparsely furnished. We long ago gave away our formal dining set to one of our grown kids. Since we'll often have 30 plus people for a sit down holiday meal, our old formal set was useless anyway to us as it could only comfortably sit 10 to 12.
Here's what we do every Christmas and Thanksgiving. I run 2 sets of 2 cafeteria tables lengthwise (4 tables total) and I put some MDF that I fashioned with rounded corners and can be hinged together on top of them. We stick some table cloths on and just like that we've got two 18 foot long tables side by side. Works like a charm.
My wife is happy not to have the dining tables up all year as she swears they're just good for collecting clutter.
I have a generous space for the kitchen table, and a small dining room - neither allows for more than 8 to sit comfortably, and you have to put the table on the diagonal in the dining room. Both spaces redundant and too small.
If I could redesign my house, there would be only one eating room. Formal enough for holidays and tough enough for every day. A pass-through window with generous counter to act as a buffet, stools for snacks on the kitchen side. Serving would be easy, and the kitchen screened from the dining/living area. Maybe shutters to close it off.
And the living room should be open to the dining room so you could extend into there for a large number of guests AND ON THE SAME LEVEL!!!! Whose dumb idea was it to design a split level where the living room is three steps up?
Flexible space is the ticket and I do not have it.
You eat in the kitchen, at the kitchen table, and ignore the cooking pots/dirty dishes behind you.
It’s worth it to save thousands of dollars for a smaller house. Dining rooms that are only used twice a year? Total waste of precious sq feet.