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Home education factors into a lot of our family life, one example is how it affects our home design choices.
I was noticing that we were spending less and less time in our kitchen lingering after meals and such. That said, my daughter does all of her school work at the kitchen table. Considering both of those things I decided that I wanted to refresh the dining area and make it kind of like a cozy cafe.
We’re still waiting on an area rug but we all love the transition and now this area is one of our favourites to hang out in! My daughter “loves the aesthetic” as she says and cozies up there with a throw blanket and an iced coffee to do her school work.
We all linger more after meals and Dean and I spend hours here on a Saturday morning chatting, having coffee and reading.
We don’t have a dedicated school room anymore (it worked well for a season) but with teens they like to spread out and so we just focus on creating function and beautiful spaces. As always we’re big advocates for loving the space you’re in. Our home isn’t huge but every space is intentional and a place we enjoy spending time in.
Lots of people have requested a deeper look at the process and links so I'll include them here!
AFTER
Rich colours, variety of textures, hyggelit, cozy cafe vibes.
THE PROCESS
The initial inspiration for the change came from seeing a bunch of designs by designer Jeremiah Brent. I noticed he was using a lot of bench seating to create these cozy dining areas and I couldn't help but feel that an L shaped bench would be a great way to use space not being used and create a really inviting area for homeschool work and family dining.
I initially went on the search for benches.
COLOUR STORY
In our home I have a colour story that carries throughout the house and I try to keep repeating those colours to give continuity. I also love them so I like seeing them pop up in different ways.
Cognac leather and wood (you'll see these tones throughout whether in leather or wood) - even in our camper! lol.
Deep greens (paint, green velvet couch & chair, too many plants to count
Black
White (most walls in our house are white)
Natural textures (not a colour but we repeat natural fibres, rattan, etc)
BENCH
I started with the bench and built the design around that. Ultimately we went with the Baxton Studio Riordan Mid Century Mod faux leather bench. Being that it's a dining area I didn't want real leather plus the price point was obviously more affordable.
US Walmart Link (We ordered a lot from the US even though we're in Canada. A lot of times these don't ship to Canada and so we shipped them south of the border and went to pick them up because we live on the border.
Another Option? I love this one too but I think my kids would have made it too much of a mess lol.
Click the picture for the link.
MOCK UPS
I find it really helpful to design mock ups so that I can get a feel for how everything looks together. I use Canva for this.
Upload images of your room and all furniture/rug/curtain options
Place the room picture as the background image
Use the "remove background" feature to remove all backgrounds from furniture pieces. Use "magic erase" if you need to remove more.
Place on the image and arrange so that you can see how it comes together.
I had around 30 different designs which were combinations of curtains, chairs and rugs I liked. As you can see with the last image - it gives a pretty decent look at what the final product will be like!
CHAIRS
Overall we really like the choice of chairs. They are unique, pull up very tight to the table which saves space, are comfortable and suit the vibe. The black chair legs do sit above the seat though and if you sit wide then it could be uncomfortable.
Not the same but a similar mid century mod style with rattan as a Canadian option:
CURTAINS
These were available in both US and Canada but only US had the right length and would be delivered a month sooner so we went with those.
SIDEBOARD
We carried the rattan through with this sideboard. I initially found it on Wayfair Canada but used google image search to find the same one (with a different brand name) on the US Walmart site. We cut the back out so that we could put our microwave in it. Works great. I really like the look of this piece.
Hopefully that helps a bit. Thanks for all the love on this transformation!
BEFORE
This is from a few years ago but not much had changed! Very light, bright and minimal.
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