Feeling a bit hemmed in? You are not alone. The average British home has shrunk by 2 sq m in the past decade, according to a study which found that the room that has taken the hit is the traditional dining room.
Developers are increasingly fobbing off buyers with space-saving kitchen-diners, effectively robbing them of one room of general living space.
The study, by the insurer LV=, also found that one in ten families — 790,000 — are living in flats, a 20 per cent rise over the past five years.
The “boomerang generation”, of young people who return home to live with their parents, is adding to the pressure on space. There are 14 per cent more multigenerational households today than there were in