Small living room planning: dining space

Image via Nicole Lanteri on Houzz

With the living room being in the works and no images to report without making you yawn, I’ve decided to dedicate few posts to talk about issues/ideas that I have for our future "great" room. Even though size is the challenge, I have certain expectations for this room and above all, it has to work for us and our needs.

So let’s start with our dining area situation.

Ever since I came to Canada and got familiar with a single/semi-detached/town-house living, as opposed to "free of condo fees" apartment living back in Russia, I was fascinated with the idea of the whole room/area in the house dedicated to just dining.

In Russia, most people don’t have such square footage luxury, as they mostly live in two-three bedroom apartments (a one-bedroom apartment in Canada is considered a two-bedroom apartment in Russia, and so on). So in most cases, people get the kitchen table out of the kitchen, put it in the living room against a sofa, add chairs from the kitchen (or borrow them from neighbours) on the other side - done. Whole dining room set up in a few minutes. Once guests are gone, the table goes to its original location. Extra chairs get returned to the neighbour.
Life goes on its usual way, until next big party. 


The situation is different here. Homes come with an area already accommodated for family (guests) dining needs. Whether that space is used or not according to its purpose is another question, but having such option in the house made a lot of sense to me.
Until I got a house without such room/area and realized that I actually prefer to be a guest rather than a hostess.:) Once that realization resonated with me, it was easier to let go of a traditional dining set-up or lack thereof. Well, for now anyway.

Living small comes with a compromise. And not having a large room/space to comfortably accommodate four-six people at a time could be one of them. Big parties will have to be held someplace else. We made our piece with that.

Then, I came across this little article. It reminded me of most parties I’ve been to back in Russia and it felt close to our situation.

I came to a conclusion that a folding table would be ideal for our situation. Something that won't be taking up valuable square footage when not in use, but could easily fit up to six-eight people when unfolded.

Image notes: I really like how the room is planned out. Despite of its size, it seems to score all the points: dining area, sitting area, reading area and a bar! It's also got personality without appearing too trendy. Like.