reswanson's Profile

Flip the dining room and living room. I am only making this suggestion as I just did it this past weekend in my house after dealing with the same dilema as yours for years. I can't believe I waited so long to do it. It looks amazing.

As with your living room, I didn't have a solid wall that I could put furniture against, but the dining room had all this great wall space and did not have the traffic flow that my living room did. So I went for it - I figured it's only moving furniture after all, it could all be moved back if I didn't like it. Again - the feel of the layout is so much better. It really fits the way my family uses the house (two kids and a husband).

I believe that I saw a previous post of yours where you are contemplating opening up the kitchen to the dining room. We did the same thing in our house and we are so glad that we did it. With the new furniture arrangment, the kitchen no longer overlooks the dining space, while I watch my kids from a distance, but rather it overlooks the family "hanging out" space.

So give it a try - you might be surprised!

FYI - my kitchen is in the small cool kitchen contest right now. Title "Renee's family kitchen." The photos do not show the new furniture rearrangement that I did this past weekend, but it may give you a sense of our layout and how it has worked for us.

Thanks everyone for the wonderful comments!

Here is the sourcing information that was asked for:

The main wall color is Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue.

The cabinets are Muralo waterborne semi-gloss enamel color custom matched to Benjamin Moore's Acadia White.

The trim color is Muralo waterborne enamel satin color paraffin

The walls between the living and dining room are painted with chalkboard paint.

The countertop is Cambria, color is Sussex

The cabinets were custom-made by a local cabinetmaker. They were designed to match the original cabinetry of the kitchen (the built-in with glass fronts is original to the kitchen).

The antique Turkish rug was purchased at an antique store just around the corner from my house.

And, just because I think it's worthy of mentioning, the wall-mounted hand soap to the left of our sink was sent to us by a friend that lives in Paris. We have not been able to find them here in the States.

The vintage stove is a 38" wide Roper which was purchased off of Craigslist. (JDDAR - I agree with your comment on the stove - although the placement has worked well for us. It is really the only place we could put a range without having to do a cooktop on the peninsula. We wanted to make the peninsula counter space as uninterrupted as possible and having such a large amount of space across from the range compensates for the lack of counter space surrounding the range).

Again - thanks for all lovely comments.

Let me know if you need anymore information.