Several weeks ago, I kicked off our official home tour with our living room. I’m going room-by-room to share our condo, and directly following our living space is our dining area.
When we first moved in, our dining table was in the front bay window, which was a dramatic look, but we never used it except as a desk. While the space is small, separating our dining area from our kitchen with a living space proved to be too much of an obstacle. Now, with both our dining area and bar area directly connected to the kitchen, it’s so much more functional.
Plus, it opens up our entire condo so much more. There’s lots of floor space in the dining area that makes the use of the space flow better. And, when we have guests, we have tons of room to just scoot out the table and add additional chairs, while still providing lots of space to sit and get up. It’s crazy how the same furniture pieces simply arranged differently can make such an impact.
Meet Our Dining Area
On a day-to-day basis, we have our white tulip style table pushed towards the wall with three chairs. This small Ikea table is an all-time favorite of mine and I love the way it looks with the cowhide rug and my grandmother’s vintage Windsor birdcage chairs, which have been painted one too many times (and someday I’ll have done professionally!). While I typically love a more black and white look, this work of art grabbed my eye when we were in Mexico City and now I’ve embraced how it adds color to the space.
Across from the table is our bar cabinet, which is perfectly sized for the space. Previously, we had a large bar cart, which now lives at the river. I loved the way it looked, but it felt a bit chaotic to have everything out in the open in such a small space, plus its footprint was huge. When we got it, we figured we’d have more room in our next place (spoiler: we do…but we don’t). This bar cabinet has a much slimmer profile, but a bit of additional height, so it fits everything that was previously on the bar cart, but contains it. Also, the size makes use of otherwise unusable space and is just a few steps from the kitchen, which is perfect for mixing cocktails.
Around the bar cabinet and the TV, I’ve also brought in lots of ornate gold frames to add a traditional touch to an otherwise minimal, modern space.
The one outstanding item that we’re still figuring out is the TV area. The TV has to be mounted on this wall because our door is across from the sofa (advantage of a small space: this totally works in terms of sightline). Right now, we have a floating cabinet to hide the wires, but it’s not ideal. At some point, I’d like to get them cut into the wall and perhaps move the TV up higher (or hang art above it), but it simply hasn’t been a priority. For now, I’m just happy that this space has finally become functional.
Sources:
Vintage Windsor Chairs {similar}
Next Up on the Capitol Hill Condo Tour
The next post will cover our kitchen and the best renovation we’ve done: adding a breakfast bar to our kitchen counters. While our kitchen is small, it’s super functional and we actually never feel like we’re at a loss for space. I’ll even cover the items we have and why to help others out who are at a similar loss for square footage!
