It’s Feature Friday! On Fridays, I’ll be featuring one room in my house in its current condition even if there are some things I’d like to change about it. If I do happen to improve something later, I can always revisit it when the time comes. Plus, I’d kinda feel dishonest if I only focused on “finished” rooms in my house. And if what they (the professionals) say is true, a room is never really finished anyways…you’re always tweaking it. Concentrating on just one room weekly should give me some time to tidy it up a bit, too. At least, I can throw all the toys into another room! So, without further ado, let’s tour my dining area.
Just off the family room and sunroom lies my open dining area. When we were looking to buy a house over 2 years ago, Handy Hubby and I knew we didn’t want a formal dining room. It would have been wasted space. Our dinners (even with guests) are casual; we didn’t need 1 room designated just to fancy meals. So, we hunted down houses with open floor plans and both agreed on our current home. Here’s what our open dining space looks like…
The view from the sunroom…
The view from the kitchen…
To ground the floating dining area (and add texture), I laid down a seagrass rug that I stained with a pattern. This rug is great for hiding crumbs and easy to vacuum.
For ambience and to further designate this space as a dining area, I got Handy Hubby to hang a West Elm capiz chandelier (that I stalked for months until it went on sale).
Handy Hubby even put it on a dimmer switch which lets us change the mood of our dining area on a whim.
The dining table is from JCPenney and has a self-enclosed leaf that can be pulled out to make a large square tabletop that seats 8.
It originally came with black X-backed chairs. To avoid matchy-matchiness, I decided to switch them out for 2 different styles of white IKEA chairs. The side chairs are plastic and make cleaning up after 2 kids a cinch. I made the pillows out of $0.75 closeout cloth napkins from Target.
Just beyond the dining table is a console that we treat as a buffet of sorts.
The framed prints are photos that I took of my Grandma’s succulent plant in Florida. I had them blown up then inserted them into IKEA frames.
The buffet tablescape gets changed up at least a half-dozen times a year. The baskets below hold table linens.
A few “for fun” shots…
So, that’s where our family eats day in and day out – from grilled cheese lunches to birthday dinners. And that lost shot was taken from my walk-in pantry which we’ll peek into next week. It’s a room of function more than form…but a room nonetheless. Happy dining!
budget decor, DIY, kid-friendly