What is the size of the room? You want to make sure that there is plenty of room to pull the chairs out.

The size is 12 X 10 . . .small.

That's why I am thinking the corner cabinets would work best.

I don't know how much storage you need, but what if you used something that was more along the lines of a sofa table as a serving piece?

Its hard to tell how much room you have in there? Could you post the dimensions?

Do you need more dimensions than the 12 X 10 measurement? I could draw a simple sketch, if that would help.

RE: the sofa table . . .that might work. It feels better to not have anything on the main large wall in that room now that the buffet is gone, however.

I like the idea of a corner cabinet and a narrow sofa table like Palimpsest suggested. Your paint is very pretty, what is it called?

I love the tall white corner cabs. I vote for them!

never ending: Thank you! The paint is from Valspar's historical line, called Churchill Hotel Maple.

oceanna: Do you think one or two? I also found a neat corner bookcase . . .I would miss having NO bookcase in that room. What do you think about mixing a white cabinet with the darker woods of the table set with something like this?

{{!gwi}}

I think we cross posted when I asked the dimensions.

If you are going to do corner cabinets (I like the idea), I think they should match...the white one looks like a built in.

Palimpsest, I didn't know if you needed more specifics! :)

What if I did 2 matching corner cabinets (china) + 1 not matching (bookcase)? Too much? My kids love to read in that room and we try to have books everywhere.

Did you look at the dining rooms thread in the gallery for ideas?

oceanna, re: no books in the dining room??? GASP! I don't know. My oldest DD is a voracious reader and I partly attribute that to the fact that books are in just about every room in the house. I admit, though, I don't know how I'd make it work since built-ins would look best but are too $, and antique/vintage bookcases are so hard to find (and often very $ as well). And yes, I did look at that thread in the gallery, many times! (I usually have to wipe the drool off my laptop!) The work you put into the gallery is just incredible and so helpful!

Books don't really belong in a dining room

No, the Decorating Police will arrest you for having books in a dining room.

So please don't tell anyone that I have books in mine.

"Books don't really belong in a dining room."

I agree it seems strange to me to have bookcases in the DR, unless you are converting it to a library. What could be interesting would be to turn the room into a reading room that you occasionally use for dining. But I think the success of this depends on the layout of your house and VERY intentional decorating choices. The room will seem odd and unbalanced unless you shift it decidedly in one direction or the other.

I cannot convert the room fully to a library. It is our only eating space-- kitchen is a galley with a breakfast bar for 2, and there are 5 of us. However, I don't know if I can give up the idea of having at least one bookcase in that room (though I want to replace what I have). My children (homeschooled) will get a lot more out of a bookcase or 2 than a china cabinet decorated with things I don't want them to touch, you know? Our house is small so I like to have my space be efficient yet pretty.

My dining room is in the center of the house - we walk through it to go from any room into any other room - but we eat there only when we have company, though it has a huge table in it. It is lined with bookcases. One bookcase has books floor to ceiling, the other has books on the lower shelves, knick-knacks on the uppers. The DR shelves are for our most-used books. We are lucky to have a built-in closet with doors that close to house all the china, silver, glasses, serving dishes, etc. that we don't use often. We eat most of our meals in the breakfast nook.

The library-office has a million books on shelves, the computer and office stuff, two comfy reading chairs. I wish I could post pics, but....alas, we don't have a digital camera!

Keep the books in the dining room if you want them to be well-used! You're very wise to realize that.

Hi Anele,
Can you keep their books in the bottom of a china cabinet - behind closed doors? I'm also thinking that books can be hard to shelve in corner cabinets. I think the corner cabinets would give you more maneuvering room, but the big china cabinet (the last photo) would give you the most practical storage.

Right now I have a lot of open bookshelves in my dining room because it is our homeschooling space (as well as our only eating area.) I think it is fine to have bookshelves in the dining room, but at the moment mine are filled with all that messy kid's stuff - odd sized books, workbooks, binders, notebooks, etc. I'm planning on getting a china cabinet (one of these days) to store the less tidy stuff in.

I love the paint color, and I think the gold mirror could be used in that room somehow; it's very pretty.

Sorry if I am not making sense; having a very fuzzy kind of day today....

I'm having a hard time picturing everything in the whole room IRL.
I like the idea of the corner cabinet but also think one of the last two pictures would give you more storage and as said above you could put some of the books behind closed doors? If the book thing works in there for you then by all means I would find a way to keep it. I'm actually sitting at my computer in the corner of our DR. Obviously it's not formal but it's currently the only place we have for it.
Couldn't you put one of those buffet pieces on the wall with the larger book shelf? Also the mirror you could always paint the frame if you're tired of the gold.

"What if I did 2 matching corner cabinets (china) + 1 not matching (bookcase)? Too much?"
I don't think so. You would be getting a different one than above?

Just my .02, but I don't think it matters what you put on the shelves in there! I have books in every room of my house except the bathrooms. Some more than others, but I think a lot of families use their dining rooms as places for the computer and for kids to spread out for homework, and do have some books in there. It just depends on how big your house is and how many other rooms you have and what their utility is. I don't have a family room, and my dining room is in the center of the house, so it has become multi-purpose by virtue of its location and the small number of rooms I have total.

As for corner units, I have two. I have to just say this, they aren't particularly useful configurations of space. I think they are fine if they are connecting two units on either side of the corner, but just in and of themselves, they are nice to look at but they don't hold a lot of things, particularly rectangular items like books! I say better get a rectangular piece or pieces, if you're trying to maximize utility for space. If space is not a huge issue for you, then go with corner units, they are cute!

looking at those corner shelf units I dont think they would be all that useful. the shelves are too triangular. If you could find something similar as in tall and slender but with rectangular shelves I think it would look good there, one on each side.

You can use pretty baskets to store some of the mismatched, less-attractive books. Store them with the spines facing up so you can easily find the right book. It might be nice to coordinate the books in the basket by subject or reading level. I bought some little, round, gift tags at Target that I use to label my baskets. (They look like old-fashioned gift tabs. The little round piece is on a string that I attached to the baskets.) If you decide to go with mainly open shelving, you can even use baskets to store your linens.

It would be nice if at least one piece was buffet height to use for serving.

Your room would be pretty with two corner cabinets flanking the window and a long, buffet-height bookcase on the wall opposite the window. I know you can't store books in the corner cabinets, but could you use the bottom (behind-doors) area for art supplies?

Could you do built-in bookcases around the windows and incorporate a windowseat as well? Then you could use the shelves for both china/collectible display and books. You could do all open shelves or a combination of open on top and closed on bottom. The windowseat might also double as seating at the table, too if necessary.

If your dining room is your only eating space, that probably means if your kids are like mine they do there homework there as well. I don't love the idea of books in a DR either, but since yours isn't a formal dining room I think the decorating police might let you off w/ a warning. ;)

What about putting them in one of the corner cabinets? I think if you don't have an actual bookshelf they might not look as out of place.

Not having a bookcase would also save you space and w/ the room being small that could help out. I've seen lots of corner cabinets w/ open shelves up top and closed doors below. You could put the books there. Or just put them on a lower shelf. That would make them easier for the kids to access anyway. It's sometimes hard trying to find a balance between what's "pretty" and what's practical isn't it?

Well, when I wanted to keep my antique lawyer's bookcase in my dining room, with dishes in it, not books, I got told in no uncertain terms here that books can't be in the dining room.

My personal feelings about it is it's YOUR house and you should do whatever serves your family best. The white corner cabinet you pictured above would be so perfect as you could keep books in the bottom. I think it's time for your DH to learn to build them for you, don't you? ;o)

Haha on the drooling in your laptop! I have been updating Gallery threads for the last few hours.

More gallery pictures! Yippee, Oceanna. I love drooling over those.

I remember an episode of Christopher Lowell (way back!), and he built (on the show) some built-in cabinets joined with a bench underneath a window. He did it cheaply with plywood and then painted the whole thing. You could do something like that on that window wall if you could move the table away from the wall a bit. Someone in another thread (last week, I think) built a window seat using kitchen cabinets. That would also be an idea if you wanted doors on the cabinet. Paint them all and they would look built-in. That way you could put the books behind doors and no one would know the difference. I'll do some searching and see if they have that episode on-line.

Almost forgot...if you are able to build the bookcases and window seat I suggested in my earlier post, the seat could also be hinged and you would have additional storage under there as well. That could store a lot of the items that you might need, but don't necessarily want to display.

I have passed your ideas about the built-ins to DH. I think this WOULD be the most attractive yet efficient use of space . . .and I've always wanted a window seat!!! We'll see what DH says. He is pretty handy, but he's never done anything like that at ALL. Too bad I don't have more $, because I do know a reasonably-priced, perfectionist carpenter!

I am glad that you have pointed out that there wouldn't be much space to store things in the corner units, esp. the bookcase. I had wondered about that, but you've confirmed it. Maybe that bookcase was meant more to display things other than books?

I like the idea of storing books behind the doors of a cabinet because it would mean I wouldn't have to search for a bookcase, but I am not sure how practical it would be . . .I find older pieces harder to open/close so I wouldn't want the kids to that regularly. Also, if the books are put away, they probably won't use them, since they'd be out of sight/out of mind. The binders in that room will be moved elsewhere, however!

Some of you suggested painting that gold mirror . . .maybe I should. I don't know what to do with it! I bought it "custom" because it went with some other frames I had, but I am not in love with it. I'd rather go for something with more curves, etc.-- old!

Ah, so many decorating mistakes I've made!

Anyway, this thread has been so helpful! I cannot tell you how much it has helped me!!!!

OOO if you get DH to build for you and you get a window seat, get him to make the seats hinge so you can store stuff in there. You could have a lot of storage space that way. Remember, we want pictures!!

Arlover, thanks! I hope you enjoy the updates.

Everyone, go see the updates in the Gallery!

My dining room is a similar size. Long ago, we had a big china cabinet/hutch thing that seemed to eat up the whole room. We got rid of it, and had two cabinets made that fit perfectly between the side of a window and the wall -- we put one cabinet on each side of the window. They're just 24" wide and 12" deep but they are large enough to hold a lot of glassware, serving pieces, and so on. They are basically bookcases with doors on them -- solid doors on the bottom, glass doors on top. I'm wondering if you might have an unfinished-furniture store near you that could make something similar, then you could either stain it or paint it. You could even have one of the cabinets just have the open shelves for your books, and put doors on the other for storage. Just a thought. I totally understand the issues with a small, multi-functional dining room! Before we added onto our kitchen, our dining room was for eating, arts and crafts, homework, basically anything we needed a flat surface for!

I don't have a better pic, but here is the top of one of my cabinets.