Our Home: Dining Room Ideas

Hi Everyone! I've had a few much need days off from work that allowed me lots of mommy time with my kiddos and husband! In addition to family time; we looked at kitchen cabinets with a local cabinet maker, checked out counter-top ideas, looked at lighting ideas (post coming Wednesday!) purchased some fabric and start pulling together ideas for our dining room. Whew, trust me its been a busy few days and I know it will get busy the closer we are to our move home date, but all so worth it! Recently I've started referring to my personal design style as California Modern Casual think: relaxed, clean lines, natural elements with layers of pattern. Like most 1950's California Ranchers our home foot print is on the small side, but my plan is to embrace it! Hopefully this should be easier now that we widened the doorway between our living room / dining & kitchen area creating a more open floor plan, read about our changes floor plan changes  here. 

My goal is to create a dining room that's relaxed and fussy free, but still pretty enough for a chic intimate dinner party with friends. I always have fun creating idea boards as a starting off point of a room design. For me it helps to get an overall feel our how a room will look and allows me to picture my family in the space, I like spaces most that are functional and pretty. Here's the ideas  I'm currently considering for our dining room. 

1. I really liked how back tab drapes I sewed looked in the dining room before, my plan is to sew another pair using a floral print fabric that will also be in our living room as pillows. Since the spaces are open to each other I think it will be a nice compliment to both spaces without feeling too matchy-matchy since we are using a geometric print for the living room drapes. I love this simple black drapery rod from Target, and its a good price! Most likely one of the bird pillows I purchased for the living room will wind up in the dining room, after its been Scotch Guarded it! I either want to do a large print from Etsy seller Anek in the dining room, we both love her Basil print. Or I like the idea of a small gallery wall. This simple gallery wall is so pretty, it makes you want to stop and stare at each picture on the wall. If we go this route, I want our wall to tell the story of our family with mixture of more formal pictures, casual ones and pictures of places we've traveled too. 

(via Pinterest)

2. Seating: We've been thinking a lot about the space our dining room and what would work best now for our family of four. Before we had four parson style chairs, which I loved in the space however their individual width began too feel bulky. I mentioned a while back, I'd love to add a banquette seating in our dining room. Since our dining room is an eat in kitchen style, and more along the size of a nook for lack of a better word a banquette in the place of two traditional dining chairs would work amazing in our petite space. I've adored this banquette seating by designer Sarah Richardson did on the TV show 'Sarah's House' a few years back, and I'm excited to incorporate this seating style in our house. 

(via Sarah's House)

We love the look, color and size of this World Market Banquette, I'm hoping to buy it when it goes on sale. I love the size of it, its huge piece for our dining room! It's a whopping 67 inches in length that's over 5 1/2 feet! If we get the banquette, I'll be using lots and lots of Scotch Guard on it! We also like these simple and affordable chairs from Crate & Barrel, I like the combination of solid wood chairs pair with an upholstered piece in a dining room. Here I am over the weekend in our dining room measuring for the banquette  I was concerned it might be too larger for the space, but after doing some measuring in our dining room we are pretty confidant it could work. Yup, I'm standing on the actual sub floor of our home, they don' make them like this anymore its all super thick tongue and groove sub floor. My dad tells me its shows the quality and time they took on building our home over 50 years ago, since he's a contractor and my dad I value his opinion:) Gotta love Dads. 

3. I love dark wood dining room tables! For me they are timeless, although if we can along dining room table in need of TLC, I wouldn't be opposed to painting it high gloss white.  I love the lines of this Pottery Barn dining room table, however I'll be in the hunt for a more budget friendly piece either from Craigslist, a consignment store or thrifted, Wish me luck on my search :) I haven't mentioned any storage in our space, before we have a small buffet that held so much extra stuff such as, dishes, candles, silverware and picture frames. If have the room, I'm thinking maybe we'll use a small side table next to the banquette, like what Sarah did. 

These are my ideas so far, I'm looking forward to creating a dining room for my family that feels like us! Can't wait to see it all come together over time. 

What do you think of banquette seating in a dining room?