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Formal dining rooms were once a must-have in homes, but that popularity has waned in recent decades. Dining rooms were the spaces to host holiday dinners or family birth- day parties. Slowly but surely, dining rooms became obsolete in modern homes that fa- vored open-concept layouts. And in those homes that had formal dining areas, the need for home office spaces or playrooms for children saw many dining rooms repurposed. According to the National Association of Home Builders, 43 percent of millennials pre- fer the look and feel of an open-concept lay- out and casual dinner parties. However, even though dining rooms may no longer be de rigueur, designers are noticing an increase in clients requesting formal dining spaces, according to a report in Southern Living. Per- haps it's a matter of open-concept fatigue. After spending a year or more during the height of the pandemic at home with few to no barriers between rooms, homeowners may be looking for homes that carve out niches for specific tasks (and privacy) once more. It may not be long until homes come back to including more traditional layouts with separate dining spaces to make hosting a little more intimate. S www.southernsenior.info 17 Did you know?