Some of the comments on the HI board and an architect I talked to made me wonder, who all (or whose clients) uses formal living room and dining rooms?

I think we're a minority but we use both of ours. The formal living room is far enough away from the family room where our toddler plays so I can go escape over there to read or nap in the couch. Same thing if someone wants to watch TV since it's quieter. The dining room gets used when people come over.

Just curious since I'm bored, and I thought both areas were on the engineered species list these days.

I don't have one currently, but wouldn't need a formal living room for my "extravagant" life style anyway.

My parent's don't use theirs either and my buddy uses his as a large dining room.

A formal living room is something I could do without since there's bound to be more than one quiet place in a house, but the dining room I think we'd actually shop for.

We watch TV in the formal living room and have on laptops in the dining room.

We eat at the kitchen bar since it is just 2 of us. Den is just a staging area for our guns the night before a match.

I prefer a larger breakfast area/one dining. Wouldn't mind a second living area but really just to throw the kids crap in.

I can't tell you the last time I've been in anyone's formal living. Dining - Christmas Eve at my in laws several years ago.

Built our house. Great room (living, dining, kitchen all together) down stairs and large second living (currently toy central with 4 young kids) upstairs. No formal anything.

Our formal dining room is the kids toy room. Never had a use for it. Normally when friends come over we are outside.

In our previous house, we had both. Formal dining room was where we put our baby grand piano. Formal living room became an office. It was not huge - more of a front "sitting area" - and was a nice office.

We custom built our house and have an open living/dining area off the kitchen. We have a large antique table in there that we use when we have company. The living area gets used occasionally and it actually quite nice with fireplace, TV over fireplace and 2 very comfy oversized leather chairs with ottomans.

Room we use most is our TV room with a nice big bar. I can see how having both rooms would be a necessity with teenagers. But, it's just the 2 of us.

We have a house where the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all the same space. One giant rectangle. Never again. My number one want for the next house is a dedicated eating space. I'd consider a breakfast nook only if it was set back from the living room enough so that you could sit around a table to have a conversation without the distractions of a living room/kitchen. Plus the table inevitably ends up as the resting place for all our crap during the day because of it's central location.

I do not care for a formal living room. If we had one as a bonus in the next house, it would become an office or a playroom depending how it segregated from the rest of the house.

We use our formal dining room when we have company and every Sunday evening we eat dinner in there as a family.

we are designing a house and our prelim thought is to have a small formal living off the foyer with French doors at the back to a study. also will have formal dining. i'm fully on board w/ study and dining but could give a S about the formal living...but my wife cares about it...so, I'm now caring about it.