Once the focal point of the family home, the formal dining room has seen its popularity dwindle in the last decade, with homeowners opting for more open-plan, flexible and communal living spaces and prioritising work and play over dedicated dining areas.
Indeed, data from property portal Rightmove has shown a 28% decline in the number of listings which have mentioned a separate dining room in the last ten years.
Concurrently, property listings referring to an ‘open-plan layout’ have increased by an impressive 74% during the same timeframe.
This shift in our home layout preferences has been dramatically exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic over the past two years. As lockdown hit, our homes suddenly needed to become a jack of all trades.
Work and study space took priority as working remotely and home school suddenly became a prerequisite in 2020.
Frequent Zoom calls offered a window into all of our homes and showed that any ‘spare’ rooms or nooks and crannies where you could plug in a router and a laptop were repurposed accordingly as a makeshift workspace.
With many of us yet to return to working in the office 9-5 Monday to Friday as we once did, it makes sense that we are still looking to combine the personal and professional in our living space.
So, what are we looking for in our homes today?
It turns out it isn’t just dining rooms that have fallen out of favour with modern homeowners and house hunters.
That eighties must-have, the conservatory, has also borne the brunt of our changing preferences and demand for efficiency in our homes.
The inconsistent temperatures, lighting, condensation issues and maintenance requirements which have all effected year-round useability have seen homeowners seek out a more robust alternative which will offer the same benefits.
Property listings that include orangeries – which consist of more bricks and have a solid perimeter roof and low-level walls – have increased by an impressive 173% in the past 10 years.
Standalone sunrooms, which won’t have an impact on the temperature (and heating bills!) in the rest of your property are also extremely popular and there has been a 90% increase in their appearance on property listings during the same period.
Conservatories, in contrast, are much less of a selling point and they are mentioned in listings 52% less often than they were 10 years ago.
Bringing the outside in to create more light and airy living areas and making use of our outdoor space – without compromising on comfort or incurring huge building or maintenance costs – is still the order of the day for today’s homeowners though.
Listings mentioning garden offices (which, like sunrooms, are less burdensome and expensive to introduce than a full-blown extension and offer the option of increasing both work and play space) have seen an unprecedented rise of 1046%.
Bi-fold doors are also more popular than ever, seeing a 589% increase in listings in the last decade. Indeed, it seems our gardens have become less about gardening and more about flexible living and entertaining space, with ‘greenhouse’ listings down 46% as well.
The main focus for homeowners wanting to add value to their property and their lifestyle is flexibility it seems.
With property prices (and interest rates!) so high at the moment and a limited stock of housing actually on the market, we need to maximise the space we already have both outside and in and cannot afford to have rooms which are only used occasionally in our homes.
Creating a multidimensional space where we can gather for meals, undertake work, education, hobbies, exercise, and play is the way forward.
As such, a less rigid delineation of space in our homes has become popular, with convertible dining tables, pull down and fold away desks to close the door on the work day and clever, moveable storage options allowing for a more functional, hybrid layout.
Unsurprisingly then, fitted wardrobes have also become one of the casualties of our changing preferences for our homes.
Listings mentioning this more permanent feature have decreased by 29% in the last 10 years as we have begun to favour free-standing wardrobes, drawers and sideboards which can be moved around the home.
Traditionalists shouldn’t despair about the decline of the formal dining room and its supposed impact on modern society though.
Space where we can come together with family and friends to dine and enjoy each other’s company is still key for today’s homeowners and prospective buyers, never more so than after the enforced isolation of numerous lockdowns.
We are just asking our properties to work a bit harder and smarter, which, given current house prices, is probably not too much to ask!