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dining room Furniture Design Dilemma

Small dining room layout

2 months ago

My wife and I are considering flipping our kitchen and dining room to gain a more functional kitchen space. However, this would leave us with a 12x10 dining room. This isnt ideal but I am thinking we could use an oval extendable dining table with 4 seats for everyday use and if we have a large gather at Thanksgiving, we could position the table on a diagonal and extend it so 8-10 people could fit, albeit very snugly. I've found a couple different oval table. One is 68x48 and one is 56x46. Would both work? I like the 68x48 table better but realize the smaller one is probably a better choice. Any other thoughts on how to best lay this out as a formal dining room? Im very hesitant to lose the larger dining room but this is my wife's preference and I'm starting to come around to the positives of flipping the rooms. Thanks!

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Comments (6)

Design Fan
2 months ago
last modified: 2 months ago
The plan measurements for your current kitchen show as 16’3” x 12’ which do not seem accurate given the measurements for the adjoining foyer and kitchen. Your post’s measurement of 12’ x 10’ seems more accurate but you may want to re-measure to confirm.

Flipping the kitchen and dining room to give more square footage to the more-often used kitchen makes sense.

If you will be in this house long term, consider expanding your re-design to incorporate the mudroom, breakfast room and refrigerator alcove. Perhaps bump those out to eliminate the exterior jogs. That entire area is a lot of space for a great kitchen and dining room (that can also be used for breakfast) that can be larger than 12’ x 10’. Also consider widening the opening into the dining room to accommodate times when you need to expand seating comfortably for more people.

Also look at your traffic paths from garage into the house and from the backyard into the kitchen/living room/family room to be sure they are placed in a way that maximizes flow, usable interior space and accessibility to outdoor spaces.
J M
Original Author
2 months ago
You are correct, the kitchen is 12x10. The realtor floorplan double counts the space in front of the fridge. The drawing is also not to scale. The breakfast nook will be a pantry/mudroom. The wall between kitchen and fridge alcove/breakfast nook will be closed off and a door added into that are in the new kitchen.
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I think it's a bit tough to give you advice because how you arrange your home depends so much on the lifestyle you lead. That said, I've offered some broad tips to aid in your redesign. Use light furniture with pads, then it can be moved around to make space. You can push the table against the wall and then pull it back when you're entertaining people. This provides some versatility to your space and lets you change your arrangement quickly to suit your needs. Try to find storage solutions that are suspended above the ground. Having a cabinet around the television can provide with a nice dark contrast and additional storage space. Anything high up can be long term storage; all the air space above 7 ft is mostly wasted (Unless you're legendary basketball player Shaq). Experiment! Spend an evening moving furniture around and see how you feel about it! There are many factors about your situation that are hard to consider. Do you watch TV during the day? (if so, moving it across from the window will give you glare!) Is eating together a large part of your family life? What do you see outside of your window? How late do you stay up? etc. Finally, do some critical analysis! What parts of the living room do you spend the most time in? why? Is that chair in the back used often or does it just take up room? Do you spend a lot of time playing with your child and their toys in the little play area against the north(assuming north is up) wall? You can setup a phone to take a timelapse over the course of a day and see exactly what you use your room for and how you enjoy spending your time. I hope this helps and feel free to ask me any more questions! P.S. It seems like your family likes the colour green; I would definitely recommend committing to it and adding some colour to your space! It can be as extreme as painting an entire wall or just getting a new cover for your futon!
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Requesting your help in designing layout for combining kitchen and dining space. If plan is to open up wall between the two rooms can you suggest a smart layout for space? Love to cook, have 2 elementary aged kids and would optimally like space for dining table to seat 6. (Bay window has radiator along entire length. Fridge is currently in nook by the stairs). Thanks for any assistance and advice you can provide!
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Comments (8)
Just wanted to thank groveraxle, and hollybar for taking the time respond and share some design suggestions. We haven't received our keys yet, but I am just sharing some photos of how the realtors had decided to stage the property. What we didn't mainly like about the way it was staged was that the focal point of the living room was looking right into the kitchen. In addition, having the dining table on the opposite side, and not next to the kitchen seemed a bit odd, to us at least. Thanks again for your suggestions, as well as suggestions for furniture options! My wife found another potential sofa below as well: https://www.structube.com/en/falcon-3-seater-sofa-46-19-68?pid=18218
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Comments (8)
A banquette bench across the back with a round table so legs aren't such and issue would give you a less cluttered look. I see you have a radiator complicating things. I will say in our first kitchen we took the empty corner installed a trestle table and two benches and increased our seating capacity from two to six. Moving chairs take up A LOT of room.
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Design Fan
2 months ago
last modified: 2 months ago
Consider posting a floor plan of the proposed new layout (even hand drawn is fine) so we can better see what you are envisioning. Where will the dining room openings be located? Where will the garage entry into the area be located?

If you bump out the existing breakfast room, you could use that enlarged space for the pantry and mudroom. If you relocate and bump out the existing mudroom, you could have a much larger dining room.

Does this area need to include a laundry area?
J M
Original Author
2 months ago
The breakfast nook/mudroom/fridge alcove will be a pantry/mudroom and the entrance to the kitchen would be through there. We would close off the current kitchen opening. Here is a rough sketch of what I think the layout of the new kitchen would be. I suppose we could move the current dining room/kitchen door to the middle of the wall. That could make more sense.
Hannah
2 months ago
last modified: 2 months ago
What is your living room set up? Could you add the dining table to that space? (28x14 seems large?). I think keeping 3' from table to wall (or table to next piece of furniture) allows for enough space to move around the table (so no larger than 48x72 with no other furniture in the room).
Design Fan
2 months ago
Consider stealing a couple feet from the living room to make the new kitchen larger and to move the refrigerator into the kitchen. Any idea if the wall between the living room and kitchen is load bearing?

Bump out the existing mudroom exterior wall and add the old mudroom space to the new dining room. This will give you a larger rectangular-shaped dining room.

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