Dining Room and Breakfast Nook

The Dining Room and Breakfast Nook Tour

While I love my dining room and breakfast nook, we don’t use the dining room often. I have heard people are even starting to get rid of them altogether. Truthfully, I’ve thought of converting ours ino a large home office one day, but not sure it would be practical, as we host a lot.

Like most people, we do use the dining room on formal holiday occasions, but for the most part she doesn’t have to work too hard. While I am a fan of dining rooms, I wanted to make sure ours wasn’t too stuffy. I didn’t want to be worried during holidays about kids spilling food on the floor or scratching the table, etc.

My wooden table and bench seating were made by my Daddy after my Papa passed away. All of the wood was salvaged from the interior of my Papa’s barn. The slipcovered PB end chairs are slipcovered making them easy to clean and super comfortable as well. I searched for a while for a chandelier as lighting truly pulls a room together and love the classic, traditional look of this one. I like to pack as many people around the table as comfortably possible (we have a lot of friends and family). The bench seating is great for squeezing in extra kids!

I get asked a lot about plates since I do like to use them in my decor often, but I also just enjoy a pretty plate to eat on. These Spode plates are the ones we often use in the dining room. The warm colors and little ducks add a refined rustic feel to our New Old Farmhouse.

Dining Room Custom Shutters

One of my absolute favorite parts of the room are the custom shutters! Before our new build even broke ground, I spent a lot of time researching trim styles. As we were moving in, I realized we needed some privacy on our downstairs windows, but I didn’t want to cover up the beautiful trim work I worked so hard on.

One day, I was browsing the internet for inspiration {as we all do} and I came across a historic home with interior shutters. I thought, “THAT’S PERFECT”! This was another labor of love by my Dad and they are absolutely perfect. You can read all about how we did these shutters here.

Dining Room Decor

Not everyone will agree about the deer head, but it’s a way of life around here! I also like that it adds some rustic masculinity to the room and always sparks a fun conversation. Mark deserves that wouldn’t you say?! 🤪

On the opposite wall, I hung a refurbished shelving unit from an old tool shed. The before and after is amazing! I actually love the original color, so all I had to do was clean it up really well. I added a pretty lamp for softer evening ambient lighting and some vintage chairs and a ladder to pull it all together.

Of course, I added unique finds to the shelves and enjoy decorating this piece each season. Did you see the super cute brass stag head I recently found and added it to the plate wall? {Ya’ll I know I love a good plate wall!} Watch the reel of where I put that little stag head over the plates!

The Breakfast Nook

The breakfast nook is where we eat most of our meals as a family during the week. I love the round table we have {similar pedestal style here}, but needed some more seating. One of the best parts of this space is the custom banquet seating my Dad and I built together. Do you see a pattern here? What would I do without my sweet Daddy-O! We host a lot so I needed seating and storage! Not only that, the traditional coziness of banquette seating is something I’ve always thought the nook needed.

The project actually wasn’t too hard, except for some special cuts my Dad had to make to get the angles right. {Dad, you’re amazing!} We used in stock cabinetry, stain grade shelving panels and got the look I wanted for much less than I could have hired our or purchased in store. {You can read more about the full details here and here.} The School House pendant adds the final touch. Mine was a lucky antique find, but you can buy a similar one here or this one is really pretty too.

Banquet Details

I painted the banquet Techno Gray by Sherwin Williams. It was a toss up between that or Snowbound (which is my wall color), but I thought this color would tie in nicely with our kitchen island since it is also painted Techno Gray. The stain is a mixture of three different stains that I created in my barn from leftover sample stains. I try to use what I have on hand whenever possible.

The Nook Blinds

I get asked about the blinds a lot! I have a full blog post dedicated to these blinds because the outer windows are so narrow that I could not find blinds that would fit inside mount.

One day {while online shopping}, I ran across wood bamboo blinds and had the bright idea that I could cut them to size. It’s wood. How hard can that be? (Says the girl who won’t be doing the cutting.) So I ordered them and called my Dad!

I resisted adding blinds for a long time for fear of taking away from the view outside. Problem is, the sun comes up right in those windows and hits us all in the eyes every single morning. They turned out great and I wish I would have added them sooner. I love the texture and warmth they add to the crisp white walls.

My Dad said he rolled the blinds up tightly, used painters tape to hold them, then cut them to size using a band sand and a fine cutting saw blade veryyyy slowly. And in his words “this was a pain in the yang-yang.” Thankfully, the larger windows didn’t require any cutting. After he cut them to size, they were super easy to install and literally took me 20 minutes to hang all by myself.

I would say these wouldn’t be the best for total privacy if that’s what you are looking for. But, my family and I can now eat breakfast without closing our eyes due to the sun shining in them! It’s been over a year now since we finished this project and I’m still so incredibly happy with it.

You can shop all my dining room and kitchen nook finds right here!

Which room is your favorite? I love them both for different reasons.