Our Breakfast Nook - Current Project

October's room of the month is the breakfast nook (or any place you eat if you don't have a breakfast nook).  We should be getting that beam in the kitchen ceiling in the next month or so and then we'll get down with that kitchen makeover but since this room is right next to that, we'll start here and just flow over into the kitchen.

I for one, can't wait for that.  I feel like the kitchen with it's studded wall is the project that's been hanging over our heads in a dark cloud.  I don't mind unfinished things but when a room is unfinished and ready to be finished but has to wait on, in this case, cooler weather, patience is a daily struggle.

But, we'll focus that will to finish on the breakfast nook and maybe we'll forget about the studs...

Here's what our nook looked like right after we moved in:

And this is what it looks like today (behind the aging lens of an old iPhone):

I didn't really clean up for you, sorry.  :/

It's a big change but really all we've done is strip down the wallpaper and take down that wood paneling + chair rail.  Oh, and scraped the ceilings.  We'll finish those once we can finish the ceilings in the kitchen.  We attempted to take out that low ceiling above the windows a few weekends ago but, after tearing into the drywall underneath, we realized that the front of that wall/ceiling holds a little more weight than we thought so we breathed a collective sigh of disappointment while Anthony patched the hole, and we resigned ourselves to just wait until a pro could tell us otherwise.  (Fingers crossed we're wrong because you know if we are, that ceiling is outta here!)  Underneath that sheet is our new gas range so obviously that will be moving too.  

Plans: 

For awhile, we went back and forth on whether we'd keep this an eating area and what kind of eating area it would be.  We have a formal dining room (which we've never had before!) so dedicating two spaces to eating seemed a little over the top.  Our initial thought was to possibly turn the formal dining room into a home office and keep the nook functioning as our only eating space.  However, after actually living in the house, we've realized that a second eating space might actually be a good idea.  Our current dining room fits a max of eight people comfortably and since we fill six of those spaces alone with our own little fam, it would be nice to have an overflow area.  So, the plan is to find a smaller round table plus four chairs to put in the breakfast nook.  We eat dinner together as a family every night in the actual dining room but this little breakfast nook will be a great place to eat *dun du du duuuu* breakfast, since the kids usually eat that together whilst I'm prepping the girls stuff for school and Anthony is getting ready for the day.  It will also be a great space for the girls to do homework after school.  Or at least that's what we hope.  Things might always changed but I'm glad we didn't make a decision about this space right off the bat because we'd probably be switching things up right about now.  ;)  How does it go at your house?  Do you have two (or more) eating areas?  How do you like it?  Pros?  Cons?

So where does that leave us now?  

Welp, as soon as these record-high temperatures calm the heck down (it's still in the 90's down here...10 degrees hotter than normal), I can open the windows and get started painting the trim.  I need to use oil-based paint on that and can't do it unless it's well-ventilated.  After that, the walls will get painted and we'll figure out some window treatments.  The pantry is also in this space, opposite those three windows, so that will also get a fun little makeover.  I'll be on the hunt for a secondhand table (or top if I can convince Anthony to make this amazing base!) and chairs and who knows what kind of makeover both of those are going to need.  Can we do all of it by month's end?  It's looking like a big, heavy plate.  Haha!  

But I've got a big, heavy plate of hopes and design dreams so...

let the odds be ever in my favor.  ;)  

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Psssst...If you're tackling your eating space with me this month, I'd love to see what it looks like and your progress!  If you're on Instagram, post pictures and tag them #letsroomtogether or just email me (beaninlove@gmail.com)!  Part of the fun is making over these spaces together!  There's lot of motivation to be had in groups!  :D