Adding A Dining Area To Your Living Room
It’s amazing how dragging a table and chairs into one side of our underutilized living room and adding a light fixture centered above it was all it took to create an instant dining area that everyone thinks has always been there. Here’s our sad little living room right after we moved in (we had no idea what to do with such a long narrow space- and no money to upgrade our hand-me-down furniture):
Here’s the same space now with a fully functional dining area right off of the kitchen (we widened the doorway for even more flow and openness during our kitchen remodel):
Getting the pendant lamp (which we picked up from CB2 for $49) wired to hang above the table by a professional electrician only cost a hundred dollars, which is a small price to pay for a brand new eating space that works perfectly for “open living” lovers like us. And since we conveniently placed our dining area right off of our kitchen, it’s easy to serve and set the table thanks to the close proximity. Our modest dining space has been such a hit that it was even featured in Do It Yourself magazine and the Australian edition of Better Homes & Gardens. And it’s literally just a table at the end of a long living room!
Of course the three inexpensive floating shelves from Ikea add architecture and personality (especially since we use them to display dishes and bottles which seem appropriate and fun in a dining area). And because many people ask us for details about the shelf-hanging process, here’s how it all went down. First we grabbed metal anchors to fit the screws that came with the Ikea shelves from Lowe’s (making sure they were made to support a good amount of weight) and then just centered each shelf on the wall with 17″ between each one. Installing the anchors is a snap, you just predrill holes into the wall (slightly smaller than the anchors) and tap the anchors into the holes with a hammer until they’re flush with the wall. That’s all it takes for the screw to grab the anchor and stay put for good. Almost three years later ours are still going strong with lots of weight on them.
Oh and the spacing between each shelf is important if you have specific items in mind that you’d like to display, for example if you want to show off a grouping of frames or a collection of vases be sure to space the shelves with adequate room between them for the items that you want to stick on each one (nothing would stink more than trying to lean your photos on each shelf and finding out that they don’t quite fit).
We also had a bit of fun with our table and decided to switch out two of the wooden chairs for a padded leather storage bench instead. It really broke up all the wood, gave us another concealed spot to stash stuff, and John and I actually sit and eat dinner on it together every night. It’s cushy and sort of romantic to share a “booth” in your own home. Plus one of the best things about it is that it can be used while we’re entertaining in the living room as well, since people can sit on it facing the couch just as easily as they can face the table.
So that’s how three cheap-o floating shelves from Ikea, a bench, a table, and a pendant light came together in an under utilized corner of our living room to create a cozy and convenient eating space right off of the kitchen.
Oh and we also got a third bedroom and a wall of extra cabinetry in the kitchen out of the deal. We converted our old unused dining room (which already had a closet)…
…into a third bedroom:
And in closing off the doorway that led to the old dining room from the kitchen (see it here on the right)…
… we earned a lot more counter and cabinet space in one fell swoop:
Gotta love a little shift in the way you use your home that leads to so many other perks along the way! So what about you guys. Have you converted a bedroom into a library or sewing room to suit your needs? Have you created a master suite in an old unused attic? Any plans to repurpose or reconfigure the way a room functions in your home? Tell us all about it.
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Comments
Hey Sally,
I think you may have been looking at the line that said “table and chairs: Target.” The coffee table is actually a thrift store find (and it’s credited that way on the Source List) but you can find something extremely similar (but a bit pricier) over on potterybarn.com (it’s metal and glass and looks almost identical). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Sherry & John –
I absolutely love the Yellow area rug in your living room. It isn’t on your sourcing page, and I was just wondering if you have any idea where you got it? Thanks!
Hillary
Hey Hillary,
You might have missed it on our sourcing page but it’s the Moorish Rug from Pottery Barn (no longer available through them but maybe on ebay?). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
i cant believe what a difference it made in your kitchen!! My house right now has a really awkward layout where our livingroom is essentially a hallway – its a bit awk. but closing off the doorway is a great idea!
I’m looking for a drum shade pendant for above our DR table. I loved this one (http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Metal-Leaf-Hanging-Light/3488813/product.html) from Overstock, but for $49, I’m not sure I could beat the value of the plain jane white one you have from CB2. Do you have any complaints about it?
Also, none of the pictures on the CB2 website show the top of it where it meets the ceiling. Is that part metal? Round? We’d have to cover up the hole from the existing brass and glass fixture, so I’m also wondering about the diameter of that part.
Any help is appreciated. ;-)
Hey Amber,
We still love our pendant. It’s chic and polished and the price was right! It also has a great texture to the fabric which isn’t as obvious in the picture- it looks nicer in person if that makes sense. As for the ceiling medallion, the pendant from CB2 actually arrives as a plug-in light, but you can easily convert it by clipping it to expose the inner wires which can be easily attached to a ceiling fixture box (we checked with them first and they confirmed it’s how they convert theirs at the store, so we did it ourselves and it was no biggie- just be sure to figure out how low you want it to hang and then cut it). Since it arrives as a plug-in fixture, it doesn’t come with a ceiling medallion or fixture box cover but they sell a bunch of them at Home Depot or Lowe’s so you can pick whichever one tickles your fancy. We picked up a basic stainless steel one and love the look. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Hi again,
Thank you for the paint advice you just gave me in the other section. I was putzing around and realized that you also needed to put a dining area in your living room just as I had mentioned in my previous question. Putting a light above the area to help it look seperate is a wonderful idea. This site is incredibly helpful!!!!
Thanks Bre! So glad you found us. We’re making a big change this weekend so be sure to check back later today or tomorrow to be sure that you can still easily keep up with our adventures in home improvement!
xo,
s
I felt completely lost and stumbled upon your website. These pictures give me hope for our new home, which is in need of some desperate renovation. I will set up our new dining room and lounge like yours. I absolutely love all of your ideas. Thankyou for the inspiration.
I have kept several clippings from various magazines and then I stumbled upon your blog and realized most of them are from your house! Absolutely crazy.
I am thinking about implementing the floating shelves like you have, but I am concerned about people backing up into them from the table. Does the bottom shelf closest to the floor help with that?
Lastly, do you have any suggestions for securing some lighter glass objects that would be a devastating loss if someone knocked them over?
Keep up the amazing work!
Anne
Hey Anne,
So glad you found your way to our site! As for our floating shelves, we placed the table far enough away from them so that when people scoot out their chairs (even extra far) they still are a good distance away from the shelving to avoid any accident. To date we have yet to have one person bump into them accidentally (knock on wood!). We do think that the bottom shelf helps with that since they don’t feel as much like shelves jutting out into the room since they’re practically a wall of shelving so they’re more like built-ins, which are easier to avoid.
For securing some lighter objects, we recommend that gummy stuff that college kids use to stick posters to the wall (I believe it’s called sticky-tak?). We use a hunk of that in front of dishes that are leaning against the wall (and cover it with a bowl in front of them that’s also stuck to the shelf with it) to keep everything in place. We’ve also heard there’s stronger stuff that’s still removable (we believe they use it on the West Coast to secure objects that could break in an earthquake) so that’s definitely something you might want to google (although we don’t know what that stuff is called). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Hi! Hope you are having a great day! We (my husband and I) were contemplating the CB2 light you have. We had been looking and then on your last Email answer post, it clicked that you had the exact same one! We are debating it because the amount of light that it gives off. We have vaulted ceilings, and are worried that the wattage is too low. It looks great in your room, so I wondered what you thought about putting it in a room with vaulted ceilings? The room is probably about 18 x 12 and I believe the ceilings are 18 feet at the tallest point (I haven’t gone up there to measure yet…) There is also a ceiling fan with lights in the same space, over the living room. The living and dining room are one great room.
Thanks in advance!
Hey Brooke,
We say go for it! It actually gives off a good amount of soft light (which is nice because you don’t want something that burns your eyes when you look at it). Our advice would be to avoid CFLs (which we use, but we’ve noticed that they seem dimmer and give off a bit less light) and instead choose traditional bulbs for just that pendant to allow for maximum light. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Is it wrong to pair dark dining chairs with a painted white table? I often see the “white chair/dark table” combo, but seldom the other way around. Thoughts? Commentary? And if you were going to do it, would it be dark wood chairs or black painted chairs?
Closing on our first home soon and so many things to think about…
We love a painted white table with deep rich wood chairs or black ones. You can’t go wrong with either combo. Good luck!
xo,
s
Hi again Sherry & John,
Since I am an avid reader/adorer of all things YHL, I have seen pretty much all the pics of your home that you have managed to cram into the blog. And every time I see these pics, I swoon over how organized and neat your home is- so very unlike my own home. One thing in particular annoys me: office clutter! Cords, cables and wires lettin’ it all hang out is NOT my idea of organization or attractiveness. How do you guys make your cords/wires/cables more organized and neat? Must I resort to actually having to tie each wire and cord individually? There must be another way! Right? Please?
Hey Elle,
We’re crazy. We’ll just get that out there before we get to answering your question. But here it goes. We’re such freaks about things looking clean and orderly that the two white cardboard Ikea boxes that you see stacked to the left of our computer on our desk actually house our cable modem and our external hard drive. We punched a bunch of holes around the top, back and sides of the boxes for ventilation (you don’t want anything to overheat!) and cut out notches in the back of each box for the cords to escape so we could easily plug things in under the desk so no one’s the wiser that our “storage boxes” actually store a lot more than paper and files! In over three years of using this method with our cable modem (and about a year with our external hard drive) we’ve never had an issue with overheating or malfunctioning (although we do occasionally lift off the tops to check on things and air things out, etc). I know that sounds crazy, but it works for us. And we have a leather ottoman under our desk with the printer on it (which gloriously hides all the cords that plug in behind it). Here’s a post with a photo of our desk at the end to hopefully demonstrate the whole system for you. We actually think there’s a whole post in this explanation so say tuned for the extended version in the coming weeks! Oh and places like The Container Store and even Room & Board sell cord wranglers that help you snake them down the legs of desks and keep everything looking great so that also might come in handy!
xo,
s
Oh, how I love these complete strangers that live in Virginia named Sherry and John. They have such fabulous ideas!
My husband thinks I’m going insane because I talk about you guys as if I know you. Me—>”Well, Sherry and John said…” or “That is not what Sherry or John would do”. He just nods his head and smiles. He’s probably thinking about having me committed. But hey, if I do get put in the loony bin, at least I’ll have some fab decor ideas under my belt to spruce up my padded cell :)
I’m thinking about copying your shelf idea for our dining room–how much space did you leave between the chairs and the wall? Also…do you think it would look funny to only do two shelves? We have a pub dining table and I’m not sure if it would look funny to have a shelf so low AND I’m pretty sure my one year old would try to pull everything off!
Hey Jamie,
Two shelves would look great too, just start them a bit higher and space them out a bit more so they feel balanced on the wall (the best way to do this is to recruit someone to hold them up while you step back and find the perfect placement). As for how far they are from our chairs/table, the front of the shelf is 24″ from the table so the chairs have ample room to be pulled out (although it’s a tight squeeze to walk around the table that way with people in the chairs so we go around the other side which has more room). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
thanks- you’re the best! tell burger that our roddick (king charles spaniel if he needs a visual) sends love!
Hi guys!
After discovering your blog, I was able to actually show my change-fearing boyfriend creative and budget friendly ideas to spruce up his once man-pad into our warm and inviting (not to mention stylish!) home. This dining room/wall shelf idea was what started it all!
You guys are great! Keep up the good work!
PS Can’t wait to see your baby inspired designs for our own bundle of joy!
Do you guys have a medallion for the pendant light? I want to hang one from one of our recessed lights, but I either need to have the gap sheet-rocked or find a medallion. Our home is fairly modern in style, so I’m not sure a medallion is the best option- at least, not the fancy ones I’ve seen. I’m imagining that if you have one, it’s probably pretty stream-lined. Any ideas?? Thanks!
Hey Katie,
We don’t have a large ceiling medallion above our living room pendant light, but we did get a little round metal fixture box cover (approximately 4.5 inches wide) at Home Depot- just something simple and stainless steel for a few bucks. If you need something larger you might want to search online (some lighting stores like lampsplus.com or overstock.com should hopefully have some streamlined options for you) or even visit a local lighting warehouse or specialty store. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
In my world that looks like a pretty large living room. What are the actual dimensions? I like what you did with it.
Yeah we were lucky that it was such a long space (although not very wide at all). It was actually very awkward when we were trying to create one large long zone, but it worked much better once we made the decision to create two smaller areas within the space! As for the actual measurements, it’s about 11.5′ x 22′. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Hi there,
I am considering transforming our living room into a living room/dining room, since our place is small. I am wondering what are the dimensions of your room?
Just scroll up to see that answer in our last comment. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Hi Sherry & John,
I am in the process of decorating my living room and dining room. I instantly fell in love with your floating shelves. I also live in VA and I’m considering take a trip to Ikea this weekend. I tried looking on the website but I didn’t see any wall shelves longer than 12 inches. Do you have two or more shelves for each row or did you buy shelves at that length?
Hey Jean,
Just search the word “Lack” and you should see that they’re online (and in stores) in 72″ lengths, which is exactly what we purchased for our dining area. They also come in a variety of colors. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I LOVE your coffee table, and I noticed on your house tour that you got them from Target. Of course, they are no longer available (I did notice the side tables though). I also looked on ebay with no luck (but I am not very good at navigating through all of that). Where else would you suggest I look that would have something similar at an economical price? Or do you think I could just use to side tables?