Formal dining rooms are soooo over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Firstly, my sincerest apologies for not blogging for a while.  Complications with technology beyond my control, interfered and crashed my computer while traveling to Paris .  All pictures and data were and are wiped out.  Of course thanks to Applecare, I now have a brand new hard drive but without any of my familiar data.  My poor hard drive was fed-exed off to data recovery for some serious hard drive surgery.

Anyways, back to my travels.  I spent a fabulous five days in Paris with two of my good girlfriends, who found themselves in the city of lights at the same time for various reasons.  Needless to say we had a blast shopping, eating and of course going to the Maison Objet.  I would love to enclose pics but am not able to.  More to come in future posts about Paris.

Today's post is about the antiquated notion of the formal dining room (Mutsch, forgive me as I know you love and value a proper dining room).  Arguably this room is the most unused room in the whole house in the modern world.  Sure, if you have available square footage, by all means, knock yourselves out and add a dining room but as space is becoming more and more of a premium, I feel some chic alternatives are possible.   Over the years as a decorator I have seen some fabulous remedies to this problem.  My friend Lisa Bowles, who owns a amazingly well edited shop in East Hampton by the name of Roark (this is the link to her furniture listings on 1stdibs.com www.roark.1stdibs.com/store/furniture_search.php?FRID=mWmcaGlilJHI) , approched this issue beautifully.  She doubled up her entry with a library and a beautiful long wooden table that can double as a dining space when needed.

Lisa Bowles' entry/library/dining space

The notion of eating in the kitchen is no longer new but still popular, however, who in the world wants to look at dirty dishes when you are entertaining.  Kitchens are a great place for family dining or for cooks that leave virtually no mess upon completion of the cooking process.  For that reason I feel rooms that are better candidates to doubling up are:  Libraries because they are very cozy and usually also unused, or beautiful entries as much space is devoted to them and again they tend not to be used.  My friend Steven Gambrel, architect and designer of New York's and Hamptons' glitterati,  sets a beautiful table in his entry when he is entertaining whether it is a sit down dinner or buffet style dining.

Steven Gambrel's entry

Without a doubt, my next house will not have a dedicated formal dining room and I am already dreaming about a library/dining room combo  with fireplace that will provide the most memorable and chic dining experiences.  Here's to living the good life.... without the formal dining room.