old country house blog

THE DINING ROOM / STUDIO

ONE CRITERIA for wherever we move is that I have an ART studio. But for now, I work in what was once and still sometimes serves as our DINING ROOM. This requires a fair amount of organization on my part.

THE DINING ROOM
THE DINING ROOM

When we purged to prepare the house to be put on the market, I ditched or packed away most of my linens. There are just 3 of us here now, (sniff sniff) so linens feel a bit elaborate most of the time.

DINING ROOM TABLE REFINISHED PHOTO BY SARAH CRAMER PHOTO
DINING ROOM TABLE REFINISHED PHOTO BY SARAH CRAMER PHOTO

The dining room table was painted (kind of a dumb move on my part) BUT this Spring I embarked in the arduous task of stripping and refinishing it. It was worth the time and effort – I love how it looks now.

A few years ago, I was shopping in Crate and Barrel and stumbled upon the LYLE dining chairs .  I   sent a TWEET to designer Mary McDonald asking her if she liked them. And she answered me!!!! She gave them a BIG thumbs up!!! I LOVE them. They are the real deal, and yes, a bit pricier than many you can find online now BUT …. The seats of most of the imitators are quite small 14″ x 14″ whereas the LYLE chair (19″ x 23″) are MUCH roomer for adult bums! The Lyle Chairs  are also incredibly sturdy…and do not tip easily – important with kids!

CRATE AND BARREL LYLE DING CHAIR - GALVANIZED - THESE CHAIRS ARE SO INCREDIBLE AND A MILLION TIMES BETTER THAN ALL OF THE CHEAPER VERSIONS OUT THERE!
CRATE AND BARREL LYLE DING CHAIR – GALVANIZED – THESE CHAIRS ARE SO INCREDIBLE AND A MILLION TIMES BETTER THAN ALL OF THE CHEAPER VERSIONS OUT THERE!
CRATE AND BARREL GALVANIZED DINING ROOM CHAIRS
CRATE AND BARREL GALVANIZED DINING ROOM CHAIRS
REFINISHED TABLE!
REFINISHED TABLE!
DINING ROOM
DINING ROOM
  • A while back I invested in hanging hardware ( WALKER DISPLAY) which works by hooking over our picture rail. It was a GREAT investment! NOT hammering nails  protects the walls and helps me store and hang multiple pieces of ART  (STRAIGHT) which are at various stages of completion.

leslihouse0104 NOW – THE ROOM FEELS SO SPARSE WITH ALL OF THE ART AT LEFTOVER LUXURIES – Seeing my pastel colored paintings on the charcoal gray wall (WOW) has got me pondering painting one wall of my DREAM studio with a dark color…I love how they POP!!!!

Leftover Luxuries Photo by Jen Fariello
Leftover Luxuries Photo by Jen Fariello

Life is a work in Progress and I love the way people are designing their homes to reflect more modern families. Sadly the Dining room is unfortunately a casualty of this change. Many homes have opted to meld the dining room into a multi-used space. In Our new home, IF we BUILD which is my current HOPE , will not have a dining room but instead a large kitchen with an HUGE table!

i LOVE this room!
i LOVE this room!

One nice thing about My Old Country House is that for a long time we used our dining room for every meal…because we do not have an eat in kitchen. I loved it, setting the table every night, fresh linens,  everyne sitting down together for a few precious moment s a day. I miss those days. But look forward to what lies ahead

Do you have a dining room? Is it a modified multi-use room or a mare traditional dining room.

18 thoughts on “THE DINING ROOM / STUDIO

  1. First, your paintings look a.maz.ing. Really. Second, I loved my dining room. We installed a fireplace in it years ago because I dreamed of family and fires and long relaxed dinners. We did that once or twice after the fireplace install then added on to our kitchen and put a huuuuuge farmtable in there and it looked out on our yard and little pond and that’s where we sat. . The DR became a drop zone for stuff until last Spring when I did the Calling It HOme blog One Room Challenge and finally completely turned it into a library we could enjoy. Now it is a favorite room and we don’t seem to miss the DR at all. I’m hoping todownsize some day and all my rooms will need to be about function first. An adjustment after growing up with the tradition of a formal DR and LR. But who needs space we don’t use every day??

  2. I don’t have a dinning room. My living room was supposed to act as living room in one side and dinning room is another. But is not that big, so I decided to use the entire space as a living room. We eat in the kitchen, no matter its size or not having a huge table. Is enough for he 4 of us (now 3) and if we have guests, we’ll manage some how!

  3. Our family of 6 (now 7 with MIL) recently moved from a 1400 sqft bungalow to a 2700+sqft cape cod. Our old dining room was a stand alone room & the only true dining space. We had combined functions by turning one end of the long narrow room into a snack & beverage station. The other end we built in a buffet that secretly housed home office/school supplies & doubled as a homework station for the kids.
    In our new home the eat in portion of the kitchen is too small for our family, so that’s becoming the new homework station. The intended living & dining area is L shaped & the flow doesn’t work for the dining room where it’s intended, so we’ve made it all living space. ATM the dining area houses our writing desk, chair, bookcase & toy cubbies for the littles. However, the amazing sunroom on the other side of that has become our dining room. Feels like we’re dining all fresco everyday regardless of the weather.

  4. WOW!

    Such a fantastic room!
    We have a range of dining room stuff too but i really like your idea of different styled dining chairs around the table.

    Good blog i’ve signed up!

Comments are closed.