Freed from smoke and dirt, the living room thus began to serve as an area for social functions and increasingly became a showcase for the owner's wealth. In the upper classes, cooking and the kitchen were the domain of the servants, and the kitchen was set apart from the living rooms, sometimes even far from the dining room. Poorer homes often did not yet have a separate kitchen; they kept the one-room arrangement where all activities took place, or at the most had the kitchen in the entrance hall.