Our dining room is easily the largest room in our house. Which is pretty cool when we have people over, but let's face it, we have a group that big maybe 6 times a year. I need to figure out how to use that space more efficiently without it becoming completely crowded.
These shelves that I posted yesterday
Would do just the trick, I think. There would be a work space on the counter (the lowest "shelf") and plenty of storage for all the vintage kitchen-y and serving pieces I've been finding or inherited over the last few years. In fact, the more I look at those shelves (because I've posted them twice in two days), the more I want them.
One other thing we plan to do to fill some space without it looking like we're filling space is to change out our dining room table. Right now, we have a bar height table that's a dark colored wood and square. I loved it when I bought it, and I still love it, but it doesn't exactly fit in our house. It has simple, clean lines, and it looks new. Not modern necessarily (and not new as in good condition...I've been known to craft on this table when I want to work upstairs), but definitely not something that belongs in an old farm house.
Anyway, here's the plan. We have this shed/barn/building/whatever in the pasture. I actually think it was a chicken coop at one point, but that could just be in my head. This building lives in the middle of our pasture, and got hit by a tree or two during a recent tornado. No great loss because we weren't using it anyway, and only the roof is damaged. So, I'm thinking we use the wood from the building to make a dining room table, and then hunt around for a much of (mismatched) wooden chairs. Something like this:
It doesn't seem to unreasonably hard to me, even for those of us who aren't so handy. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I figure we can always ask for help if we need it. I see ours being a little wider, so we can have chairs on each end, and plenty of room to serve dinner from the table, should we ever want to do that.
Random memory: we always serve family meals buffet style...Mike's family does too. One year for Easter, my mom decided she would serve dinner around the table. My brother and I didn't even realize big meals could be served that way, and neither of us were too please to pass food around the table when we wanted to eat. To this day (easily 15 years later), we still talk about the Easter dinner where mom tried that "pass it around" crap. We aren't fans. :)
It would be nice to have everyone in the family sit around the table. If we were to invite everyone in the immediate family to dinner now from both sides, we'd have 17 people around the table. That doesn't include grandparents, who are usually included at holiday dinners (that's another 5). I know I will never have a table that seats 22, but it would be awesome if we could get at least one side around the same table and have a meal. My goal is to make the table seat 14 to allow for foster nieces and nephews or new additions to the family over the years.
Another option would be some sort of additional seating not directly tied to the table, but that could be used when we have large groups over. Something like these:
I think the window seat concept would certainly fit with a farm home (especially the first one), we'd just have to make sure we didn't go overboard and make it look too "country" in style.
Okay, there's the rest of my rambles. The only thing I really haven't thought through is the window treatments. Which is sort of odd since I know I won't even start painting or recovering until I have something in mind. There's too many windows in the dining room to leave them open all day and night...our house would be freezing!
So, any suggestions for (inexpensive) window treatments based on what I've posted about?
Have a great one!!
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