making room(s) volume 3: dining = in.

recap if youre new and need more BEFORES-

-the problem: we have a tiny 3 bedroom house. these bedrooms consist of the master bedroom, judah's room, and layla's nursery.

-the breakfast area (ersatz dining room) was taken over by me as a sewing space when my business starting growing/paying the bills.

-the living room then by default became the play room, family room, AND dining room.

-i took over layla's nursery in february and made it our office space/studio and then added a mind-blowing accent wall.

-pinterest SAVED OUR LIVES with a pin that gave both kids a bedroom AND a playroom all in one.

so we effectively reclaimed the dining area for...DINING! weird times. but we needed a hearty dash of sprucing-up as an appetizer before our first family meal could truly be enjoyed. 

my children were raised to believe that sewing machines are the purpose for dining rooms and tables therefore they are UTTERLY un-table-trained. and even with our glass-topped IKEA table now clear, jesse and i are so uncomfortable at that spindly devil that WE didnt even want to sit and eat there.

so we decided to send that table set off to the land of craigslist for retirement (a lovely college studen bought it and accidentally left his fairly nice digital camera behind in the process. we keep trying to email him to come get it but he never replies. i suspect there are murder photos on the camera and he is planting them on us...because i'm normal that way).

since the dining area is really quite small, i thought a little half-boothsy banquette would be a good answer. this way, you dont have to leave room for pushing back chairs, and you just get to practice your isometric squats that all restaurant booths provide us.

jesse built the banquette with mdf (just a simple 3D rectangle) and then we trimmed it in beadboard and molding. the top is on hinges and the inside has a divider so there are two big storage cubbies.

i made the seat cushion out of thick foam and upholstered it with a laminated fabric (so easy to wipe down).

and the big daddy project was building our new dining room table from scratch. jesse rocked the mess out of this project for beyond cheap and i LOVE how it turned out. 

i modified down this gorgeous farmhouse table tutorial to fit our space (we dont need a 9 ft table just yet) and to make the style a bit more my style (less curvy, more straight lines).

as you can see we hadnt decided on the two other dining chairs quite yet...

and then to make the now pristine back wall look more integrated and finished, we added more beadboard  up to 2/3 the height of the wall and trimmed the top. 

so we have totally made this space mad functional and bordering on pretty! it's still obviously a very blank canvas in terms of personality and style...but that is coming soon. i'm enjoying the nice respite of blank spaces here since the previous "decor" had a tad too much flair and visual interest.

before:

AFTER:

happy heart.