Dining Room Mood Board

The dining room, sitting area, and kitchen island have given me a run for my money. I know it’s because of the open concept kitchen. The need to coordinate the dining chairs, table and counter stools has been a challenge. I want to keep the dining room a bit more formal, but it can’t lean so formal it looks silly next to the counter stools and an open concept kitchen. See the kitchen layout here.

Admittedly, an easy solution would be to do the exact same chair in both a dining chair and counter stool format. But, that would be too easy. And I don’t do easy. My initial plan was to find different styles of chairs for the table and island in the same wood finish. Shockingly hard to do. But, if you happen to be looking for that combination, I recommend these and this.

Unfortunately, the dimensions of the above stools aren’t quite right for us. We need something less deep and ideally more narrow. I’ve been in love with this table from Doorman Designs for years. I’ve seen and liked their stools, but assumed they were a bit large given their looks. I was so wrong! They’re the perfect size – the 18″ depth is really perfect for us and so hard to come by. Selecting their stools and table allows for some consistency in wood finishes.

Our current table, which I found on Facebook Marketplace and was always intended to be temporary, has caned back chairs and I LOVE them. They’re the reason I bought the set to begin with. But, the wood tone isn’t quite right for any of the finishes Doorman offers (I purchased samples to compare). So, I considered going with these which I think work better and are beautiful and really comfortable (I was able to see and sit in them in person).

The idea of fully upholstered dining chairs crossed my mind briefly during this process. But, I never truly pursued it because I worried they’d take too much of a beating between the animals and our daily use. Months into this process and desperate to make a decision and move forward, I decided to reconsider upholstered chairs. I’ve decided on these due to the many colors and patterns available in performance fabric (also available for purchase by the yard, so I can have the counter stools made in the same fabric). Samples are on their way, so exact fabric is to be determined.

I’ve come close to purchasing these chairs and these stools, several times. But, I never could go through with it. Sometimes, I have a hard time completing a purchase because I’m scared (it’s a lot of money, I worry I will be disappointed in person, etc) and other times I can’t go through with it because in the back of my mind I know it’s not what I want. This time, it was because I couldn’t nail down exactly what I wanted.

couch

That leaves the sitting area. I scored this couch on Facebook Marketplace and I want to add two petite chairs to complete a sitting area (formerly the kitchen) adjacent to the dining room and kitchen. When I was planning on wood frame dining chairs, I wanted to do upholstered dining chairs in the sitting area. Now that I plan on going with upholstered dining chairs at the table, I’m thinking a caned chair with a painted frame might be a nice accent. The black frame on these tie in nicely with our kitchen counters. But, I’m strangely loving the blue on these. I’ll decide on the fabric first and then make the final decision on accent chairs.

It feels to good to feel good about the plan in here. And I love that it’s a mix of retail, secondhand, vintage (a cabinet and secretary hutch not pictured), and artisan made. Plus, the bookshelf is already starting to fill up with goodies from my favorite local shops and artists.

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