[old and tired]

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.

[heartwood]

I like your idea.