Dining Room Design Next Steps

OK, y’all are the BEST! So many great ideas and comments in response to yesterday’s post about the dining room! (If you missed yesterday’s post, you can read it HERE.) I learned a lot from your comments, including that many of you struggle with how to design your dining rooms, too! It’s a hard room to design because we want to use it more often but we’re often constrained by what we’ve experienced – i.e., that the dining room is a formal space for holidays and special dinners.

As many of you pointed out, the furniture isn’t so much the problem as the feel of the room. That said, though, there are two things about the furniture that bother me:

1. The buffet is too big for this room. I bought this buffet about 15 years ago at the Pottery Barn outlet. I bought it for the house we had before, and it fit in the dining room nicely. Now, though, it’s a bit big for the 1929 house, because the only place it fits is in front of the windows and I don’t like blocking the windows. I’ve thought about whether we could use the buffet in another room, but it just doesn’t fit anywhere.  Also, it’s a bit orangey, especially in this room with the medium-dark wood floors and beige walls. I would paint it if I thought it was the perfect piece for the room, but I really think it’s just too big.
2. The two chairs at the head and foot of the table are too formal. I like them fine, but they aren’t the right style for the look I’m going for. The other chairs – the gray ones – are the ones I reupholstered (see HERE for that post) and would hold up fine to game playing or anything else. They’re plain and fine for any style room.

So, with that in mind, I’m going to start the process of redesigning this room, focusing on the decor and making it more casual.  Here’s what I’m going to do next.

Dining Room Design Next Steps

1. I’m going to first empty the room of everything except the big pieces: i.e., the table, the chairs, the chest. Everything else out.
2. Exception to #1: I’m going to move the buffet and the two gray patterned chairs out of the room. I want to see what removing those pieces does to the look and feel of the room.
3. Before moving the buffet, I’m going to empty it and see what I’ll need to store elsewhere if I get rid of the buffet.
4. Give the room a good cleaning – floor, trim, windows, etc. – before I start putting anything back in.

Once I get those four things done, I think I’ll be able to visualize what I want the room to look like.

I’ll keep track of the progress on Instagram, so make sure you’re following me at instagram.com/dogsdonteatpizzakaren.

Keep those ideas and suggestions coming! I love them! Thank you!!