Dining Room and Kitchen
Executive summary: I like to keep my surfaces as bare as possible for fast cleaning (soooo important with kids), so the dining room and kitchen are full of functional decor that makes it easy to grab what we need while not unnecessarily creating clutter.
One side of our main space hosts the living room, the other side the dining room and kitchen. I’ve shared before that I find it hard to nail down a dining room style that calls to me (or the problem is that too many do), but our particular layout makes it much easier by having a couple of “fixed” design elements that I can’t mess with (i.e., the expansive windows and the light fixture). There’s not much I can do with the windows but put up curtains, so that part is settled for me. And the light fixture is a favorite of my entire family (we call it the “moon light”), so I don’t foresee changing it out anytime soon (or ever). So right there, we’ve taken care of 40% of the room already. The “swappable” elements of the room are the table, chairs, bowl, star, and clock. The table is a new acquisition (so it hasn’t been thoroughly tested yet) and heavy on the farmhouse vibes, but I don’t think it’s incongruous in our space. The chairs I adore, and bought an extra set now that we can comfortably seat 6-8 around the table (which happens on a regular basis now with grandparent visits). As for the centerpiece and wall decor, I could theoretically swap them out, but I have no impetus to do that … yet. The bowl holds fruit that we eat every day, so it’s highly functional, and I don’t want a table centerpiece that would compete with the moon light for attention, so keeping a (literal) low profile works here. As with the rest of the condo, I’m trying to keep it simple and have as few items on the floor and table as possible. You could imagine this space with a bar cart, or a table runner, or an elaborate centerpiece, but I prefer to be able to wipe the surfaces without having to maneuver around extra stuff … crucial for my sanity when I’m on my hands and knees here at least twice a day cleaning up after the kids.
Table: Target | Chairs: Target | Highchair: Stokke | Bowl: HomeGoods | Metal star: Amazon | Curtain rods: Rejuvenation | Curtains and rings: IKEA | Moon pendant light: Crate & Barrel | Clock: IKEA
I’ll take a moment to discuss the wraparound windows in the dining room. While it’s great to have the light and the views, our move into the condo would’ve been 10% easier for me if the windows were spaced apart at the corner (as opposed to basically connected). The reason is that it’s apparently so hard to find attractive corner connectors for the curtain rods! There isn’t any space to have two separate rods – they would collide in the corner – so I needed corner connectors to essentially create one long rod that turns 90 degrees. I only came across two options for corner connectors, one higher-end and one lower-end, and the lower-end one wasn’t meeting my aesthetic standards. So I splurged on the nice Rejuvenation rods (“splurge” is subjective, as the rods were $200-$300 each, depending on length, which I’m sure some people think is absurd and others perfectly reasonable). I do like them, especially as I wanted to try a French return rod (where it curves into the wall at the ends), and I also like how slim they are (0.75” diameter). So I’m not complaining about the outcome, just the process that was complicated by that corner situation.
That corner window caused me quite a bit of consternation!
Pivoting around, we move into the kitchen. I admit this is a space that I would’ve designed differently had Stanford faculty housing allowed it, but I’ll try to not sound too whiny. I mainly take issue with the blank white wall, as we’re not allowed to put up any backsplash, but at least we have that window tucked beneath the cupboards to break up what otherwise would’ve been a long stretch of boring wall. I also don’t care much for the glossy white upper cupboards (and they were quite dirty when we bought the place – I literally had to stick a toothpick into all the crevices to scratch the grime out, which was accentuated by the shiny white). It’s not the kitchen of my design dreams, but it does offer ample storage and counter space. I could’ve styled out the counters a lot more to make up for the bare walls, but that would be anti-minimalist. Keep on KISSing. The 2-tier dish drying rack I’ve talked about before (see post here) and the white pitcher was the centerpiece of our previous (much smaller) dining room table, but now holds the cooking utensils. I’ve also mentioned the bowl of toddler munchies before (see post here), which I like to keep handy on the island as said toddler is always asking for something from that stash during meals. And of course, no kitchen of mine would be complete without our travel magnets on the fridge. Kitschy? Maybe. But I don’t care – they have established themselves in our home beginning with the first international trip my husband and I took together, a “post-college graduation and pre-wedding romp through Europe.” Since then, we’ve greatly grown our collection and I have no intention of hiding it away, no matter if it’s design heresy or not.
Marble paper towel holder: Crate & Barrel | Dish rack: Yamazaki Home | Gold bowl: HomeGoods | Water pitcher: HomeGoods
I don’t even notice it anymore, but you can see that we do have a bar seating area at the kitchen island. We have no use for it as a seating option, so I didn’t bother to get bar stools (remember, nothing extra on the floor!) Maybe it’ll be utilized in the future if our family’s cadence changes, but for now, I basically pretend it doesn’t exist. I toyed with ideas of buying or building a storage shelf or cabinet to fit in the cavern, but we don’t even need the storage space, so I nixed the notion after a hot minute. I appreciate that with the waterfall counter, there are no corners jutting out into open space waiting for a clumsy child to stumble too close. I would hate to have to choose between suffering through parental guilt/heart attacks or suffering through ugly corner protectors!