Jersey losing its taste for dining rooms

Friday 19 February 2016

The dining room is a dying breed in Jersey with pressure to create extra bedrooms or playrooms meaning that fewer and fewer of us have a separate room for eating.

One furniture retailer says that sales of dining room furniture have dropped by at least a half since 2001.

Paul Clark, Managing Director of online furniture shop Mypad, said: "Over the past 15 years I have seen a drop in dining room furniture sales, but in particular, in the past five years, there has been a significant decrease, with sales declining by at least 50 per cent.

“When I started out in retail 25 years ago a lot more people used to sit around a table for a formal meal. Open plan homes mean the line between spaces for living, cooking, and eating has become blurred. People are just as likely to eat around a kitchen table now, or use a coffee table in front of the sofa.”

Part of the reason may be that we're building smaller homes than ever before - research by the University of Cambridge suggests British new builds are the smallest in Europe at just 76 square meters, compared to 137 square meters in Denmark.

According to the Royal Institute of British Architects, the average family home shrank from 98.8 square meters in 2003 to 96.8 square meters in 2013 – a drop of two square meters – which is roughly the space of a good-sized dining table.