Nook

We have an odd space in our house, past the kitchen but not part of the kitchen, nor does it lead to any other part of the house OR outside! Totally weird.  We titled it the "breakfast nook" and painted it a sunny yellow and haven't touched it since. Wow! We were right on that project :)

With family coming in the Thanksgiving, though, we knew we'd need extra seating so we've finally gotten in gear and started outfitting the nook.  Joe stopped by ARC and found these chairs - EXACTLY the style I was imagining, for only $10! I'll work on slipcovers later....

Then we saw an awesome idea in "This Old House" magazine (the one I hoard and will never throw away) to use short upper kitchen cabinets for benches in a breakfast nook... it seemed the idea was MEANT for us since we had recently removed our short upper cabinets to accommodate our new fridge! Here's our old cabinet:

The same day Joe found those chairs he stopped by the Re-Store (like Habitat for Humanity Store) and got a second cabinet to match into the corner,

plus a corner cabinet for storage to butt the benches (upper cabinets) into. 

That's not what we ended up doing, but that was the original thought.  Anyway, here's how we ended up...

You can't see the benches, but they're there.  Trust me.

Also, the table was from Goodwill for $34.  It has 3 removable leaves, which is what led us to re-evaluate our floor plan.  We were going to secure the benches to the walls but what we want to put in the table leaf? What if we want to turn the table 90-degrees? What if we're Joe and Kirsta and can't leave a piece of furniture alone for more than 6 months?  So we left everything freestanding.  Still to come: painting the cabinet white, painting the table something interesting, upholstering the benches, slipcovering the chairs, sewing some café-style curtains, and getting some dang art on the walls! Sheesh, it looks bare (and un-matching) in there. We'll see how far we get by Thanksgiving, eh?