Dining rooms were once spacious, elegant examples of dining design. They have been gutted and, frequently combined with other rooms, leaving you unaware f where the living room ends ad the dining room begins. If you are fortunate enough to have a separate dining room and not just an area, what follows are some tips for storage.

There are two basic furniture requirements in a dining room: a table with chairs and a display cabinet for special occasion china and cutlery. If you are pressed for storage space, utilize the available furniture as much as possible or replace it with more functional and adaptable pieces.

A skirted table can hide a myriad of things. For this trick, you'll need a tablecloth that goes to the floor. You can cover the table with something simple or layer it with different length cloths. One time conscious person has suggested you multi-layer the table with several of your linens. When one is used, you remove it to reveal another layer. This serves two purposes: a storage place for your linen and as a means of keeping them wrinkle free. If you adopt this practice, remember to cover the good linen with a see through plastic covering to protect it and all the layers from spills.

Another possibility to decrease the amount of wrinkles and increase storage space is to attach a dowel to the back of a cabinet or closet. It makes for easy accessibility while minimizing creases and lines.

Another means of turning the dining room table into extra storage space is by returning to an old-fashioned kitchen table style.

Old-fashioned table had the cutlery drawers built into them. You pulled them open and you had easy access to the necessary knives, forks and spoons. To adapt your current table, attach one or more shallow drawers to the underside of the table, making sure they do not rub against or hit the knees of anyone sitting at the table. These can be used to store the cutlery, linen and other items used regularly at the dining room table.

Also to be considered for possible storage purposes is the china cabinet. This structure may be free standing or part of a larger unit with drawers. Make sure you use every inch carefully. If necessary, clear it out, sort everything, discard nonessential and extraneous material or items, and replace the items. Add or build extra storage units within the larger unit if you feel it can help in the fight to achieve maximum storage capacity.

Do not forget to look up. See if there is any room above the cabinet to locate tasteful baskets or boxes filled with stuff you are not currently in need of using.

Another viable way to store material is by building shelving units. These can be placed unobtrusively around the room or in obvious places. You can display some objects in plain view while you covertly hide others in the background.

There is one thing you should really remember when finding or creating storage in any room of your house, including the living room. Try to make sure the items stored in each room ? excluding garages or attics, pertains to that room and that room alone.