Double duty dining room

The dining room is often an extra space that gets used only for holidays or special occasions. But if you're plagued by small square footage—or if you're trying to make your house more functional overall—then this dedicated eating area may be eating up precious space. Never again have to sacrifice one room for another with these 14 ideas for making your dining room work doubly well.

See how a food blogger transformed an unused living room into a stylish double-duty dining room and workspace -- all with a Latin twist.

Modern and Traditional Mix in Versatile Dining Room Makeover

Formal dining rooms are starting to go the way of the formal living room—out of service. While many homes have dining rooms, the square footage devoted to them often isn't justified by the little use most families get out of them. And who wants to waste that much space? Instead of letting an entire room become a black hole for clutter, get inspired by these 7 ways real families have converted their dining spaces.

Dining rooms make ideal libraries because they often have expansive walls that can be transformed into bookshelves,” Johns says. She chose the largest wall—where a hutch or server might go—for the beadboard-backed shelves and built them floor to ceiling so they became part of the architecture. The wall of windows opposite offers light and views.

It’s not whether a home is large or small, but how well it works — and today, that can mean using a space in more ways than one. Here are three rooms that work twice as hard, including a home office that doubles as a dining room, a laundry and mudroom in one, and a […]

You can make your dining room more functional by using the space wisely. These design ideas will help you make your dining room more inviting and usable.

Kevin decided to go a bit non-traditional with his dining room makeover. He created two different spaces, each equally cozy and stylish. From Kevin: When I started out, the room had a very traditional layout, with a large dining table at the center of the room and a buffet under the window. For the dining room makeover, I found new places for these pieces in the room in order to make space for a completely new design.

The library truly is the most versatile room in our house.

From the Makerista This is the room to blame. Everything was going fine in my life until I saw this room. Once I saw it? My life pretty much fell apart and I