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A Cozy Breakfast Nook

credit: julia fay photography

We gave up a formal dining room two moves ago. However, my beloved Pier One dining table has made the move with us those two moves.  In our most recent house, as much as I loved my dining table, it just wasn’t working in the space. It’s lack of intentionality really showed. To navigate between our new oversized island and the chairs of the table your hips would end up in a swaying motion to no music playing. After the addition of our puppy I realized the furniture was actually living in the space more than we were.  It does not hurt my feelings or concern me at all to not have a formal dining room. When we host and entertain,  people have always gravitated to the kitchen and around our kitchen island. For this reason when we renovated our kitchen we maximized the island top to accommodate five seated.  Therefore, eliminating a formal large dining table was a natural decision and repurposing the space with intention in a breakfast nook has changed the entire use and livability of the space! As always, I am simply sharing our process with an emphasis on the decision making behind the design. My husband and I should not be your source for a DIY tutorial but more of inspiration as you look at the opportunities of your own home.  We claim no responsibility for DIY gone wrong ;).

BEFORE: A CROWDED DINING SPACE

credit: at home with ashely

In true millennial nature, I scoured the internet for inspiration as my mind started to churn on the concept of adding breakfast area with a built in nook into our space. My favorite word was dropped “Project” and my husband’s favorite word “Divorce” followed. I jest, a little. Here are a couple of my favorite inspo pics and tutorials I found.

After my “research” and configuring my own space I set off to IKEA for a cinnamon roll and to see what could possibly work in a similar manner into our space.  Ultimately we ended up using two Besta storage units to fit our space. We planned the cushion and formal seats to go over three of the “cabinets” which would double as storage space and would cut the fourth cabinet to function as open book shelving or a display. 

I had a custom cushion made with accent pillows. I am a big fan of Revolution fabrics and the fact I can just wipe off nearly any stain the kids have thrown my way.

credit: victoria moon photography

Here is the before space… a blank canvas once the dining table was moved.

And here is our very intentionally designed breakfast nook space. It has quickly become my kids favorite spot to eat in the house.

Happy dreaming, designing, and building.

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