The Dining Nook

The dining nook might be the space that made me fall in love with this house. 

This felt like the heart of the home, a built in space for gathering, eating and being together with people we love. Less of that has happened since we’ve been in this house (thanks, Covid) but we know more of those times are just around the corner. 

The backstory of this room is that it was a deck when the house was built in 1962 and was enclosed to become a sunproch a year later in 1963. As a result, this room features original exterior cedar siding which creates some unique wall paneling and this amazing avocado Preway wood stove was installed as a heat source. 

I had so many questions about this space. Why was one wall left natural cedar and the other painted white? What is the deal with these bulky blind casings that hide the full shape of the windows? Did we need this white metal sheeting behind the wood stove? Why did they opt for cheap faux parquet flooring in here that doesn’t match anything else in the house? And why oh why oh WHY are the pendants not aligned over the dining area? We got after this room in phases and tried to address those question marks in a thoughtful way.

We started by creating a blank slate. We pulled down the metal shelving and painted the cedar wall to the right of the dining area white. Painting wood is a tough decision, there were a few factors we considered here, but our biggest issue was that the transition between the wood wall and the white wall behind the Preway woodstove was not a clean look and didn’t highlight the fireplace. We also weren’t sure if it would be possible to remove the white heat barrier behind the fireplace and figured it would blend better on a white wall. After looking into codes it turned out that we did not need it so we removed it later on, but at the time it was a factor in the decision making. We consider the woodstove to be the focal point of the room and wanted it to shine. We figured by retaining the natural wood tones around the dining area we could maintain the contrast but still clean up that corner.

We removed the parquet and the terracotta tiles around the fireplace and carried in Maple engineered hardwood that Jeff and his dad installed throughout most of our home. I will dedicate an entire post to our adventure in flooring, but we love this Maple so much and saved major $$$ doing it ourselves. I love how much the floors brighten this space and they are so durable with pets and kids.

We removed the funky blind casings as well as the blinds and refinished the wood window frames. We also cleaned and caulked the tongue and groove ceiling and gave it a fresh coat of paint, this took forever (my father-in-law is a saint) but it made a huge difference on the tired ceiling.

For the lighting, we knew for sure that we wanted to reorient the lights to be centered over the dining table. Sadly, the original pendants were in rough shape, stained and torn, so we removed them and replaced them with rattan basket pendants that added neutrality and lightness to the space. Installing light fixtures on tongue and groove ceilings is a complicated process when there is no attic, the cable has to be exposed. We ran the wire on the backside of the beam so that it is concealed and somehow Jeff and his friend made it all happen without calling an electrician, so that was a win.

Finally, we addressed the seating area. I can totally imagine the bright yellow vinyl cushions in their heyday, but they were definitely past their prime. Upon inspection the foam was still in good enough shape and although they weren’t looking so hot, the vinyl and zippers were decently sturdy. Custom cut foam can be super pricey, so we decided to just cover these with a heavy linen upholstery fabric in a dark blue. My very talented mother sewed the new covers for us and they are super easy to remove and toss in the wash, plus it is nice to have the waterproof vinyl underneath in case of spills.

We added lots of throw pillows and we already had this marble and walnut dining table which fit the space perfectly, along with these Cherner chairs which were passed down from my grandparents. This is a pretty perfect loungey nook and toddler climbing gym. We love this space so much and live in it so hard.