FAMILY NEST IN PROGRESS \\\. THE MULTI-FUNCTIONAL DINING ROOM

A family that eats together, stays together

Our dining room is one of the most hardworking rooms in our house. 

We have dinner in this room everyday, 

but we also draw, paint, play Lego and piano, work and pay our bills here.

So when it came time to renovate this room, 
our vision was to keep it simple & stylish (my fun version of K.I.S.S.), 
and make it a versatile space as much as possible. 

When redoing a room, we first try to think of what we'll be doing in there. This was on our list:

• Have our family dinners everyday here. Easy setup and easy cleanup so the kids can participate and become responsible in house chores;
• Host big family parties and kids birthday parties (20ppl+). We need enough room for folding tables and kids running around;
• Space for the kids to draw, paint, read and play with their toys. We have a playroom with plenty of toys in the basement, but since we spend most of our time in the kitchen when we're actually home, the kids seem to prefer being close to us ( that's what I like to think) and bring their toys upstairs on the main floor. If you can't beat them, join them, so we've set up tables for their Legos and Dinosaurs on the main floor. And this also gives me an excuse to get new pretty baskets;
• A big table that can withstand markers, laptops and Pho (Tonkinese soup) spills, and that's large enough for us parents to work on late at night next to each other (how romantic), or when the kids start having homework. My colleague who is a dad of three boys brought up the point that when the kids are in elementary school, it's best they do their homework near us since they need our input more often. Later when they'll be in high school, they'll use their desk in their bedroom more often. This was music to my ears since it allowed me to delay the cost of buying individual desks and invest rather in more urgent items (new beds) for the time being;
• Play Piano. I played for seven years back in the days and although I am a little rusty today, it'd be fun to introduce our kids to music this way. They've requested Happy from Pharrel and the latest One Direction songs (ok fine, maybe I hinted that request), but for now they'll have to be happy with good old Frère Jacques because that's all I can play with zero practice time;

So those were our big hopes for this dining room: Eat. Play. Work. and I think we've succeeded.

Here's what the space looked like before:

And here's how we're using it today:

 

 

• The dining table is a hands-me-down from my mom's office back in the 90s. It was then at my grand-mother's apartment, and then made its way to our first apartment and then first house. We liked its clean lines and decided to keep it when we moved to this house since we knew the kids would scratch it and paint on it for a couple more years;
• Bought the Wishbone replica chairs online. I always liked their organic shape and knew their would fit well with our future investment dining table (something similar to this).
• Used our old coffee table from our first apartment as a table for Legos or the toy-of-the-moment (Dinosaurs). I find coffee tables to be the ideal height for kids tables and since we're all about versatility and reuse around here, we like furniture that can work in any room. (See in our living room makeover how the kids table became a coffee table);
• We added a pretty gallery wall with family pictures that took me 18 months to finally get to last Christmas, but recently I've been having new ideas and I might bring it all down and move it to the staircase (but it's not a priority and husband's not too excited about the rework so it'll stay there);
• We chose to not have a buffet here to keep it airy so we made sure to include in the kitchen design enough storage space to store all the dinnerware and glassware;
• The structural essentials: we've added new floors, new pot lights, new custom-made heating covers and new windows. Smart, lasting investments;
• Eventually, we'd like to put up wall-to-wall white curtains, but I haven't had time to tackle the diy approach yet and the custom option sounds very expensive thank you;

I hope you enjoyed this mini-makeover of our multi-tasking dining room, where all of the kids' magic happens. Where do you have your meals? In the kitchen, in front of the tv or in the formal dining room, and what else do you use it for? I'd love to hear how you worked it out.

Cheers to the multi-functional dining room!

xo 

Kim-Anh.

Photo Credits: Words of Wismom.