Since it's moving week here in Quebec it seemed the perfect time for some home inspo on the ol' blog! Our dining room has been a bit of a tricky space to decorate and was the last place we put any real effort into since moving into our condo several years ago. Like most flats in Montreal, it's a small space with no windows. Sounds like a dream, right? Haha but actually we love our home so much, even the quirks. Something I strongly recommend (and that I've been aiming for since as long as I've been a home dweller, then owner) is to banish negative home talk from your vocabulary. Are there things in every home you'd love to change? Of course! Does every home have tricky areas to live in and decorate? Probably! Are we among the luckiest and wealthiest people in the world to call a private, safe dwelling our own on this planet? Also yes. Back to our dining room, which in truth is not a room but a nook. And a nook I'm very thankful for, even with it's quirks!
This final space could never be what it is without the team at Prunelle who gifted me my dream dining table and two chairs to add to the couple we already had. Prunelle is a family-owned mid-century modern furniture paradise based right here in Montreal. They have some hard to find mid-century pieces that I haven't seen anywhere else in Canada, as well as some of the most universally loved Scandi designs.
I love mid-century modern, but not so modern that the space feels cold, so I always aim to mix and match whites and metals with woods and warm colours, as you'll see here with the oval tulip table and wishbone chairs in ash. I also have some other white mid-century-style furniture in the room - a white bench for the kids (not pictured here but you've seen it in previous posts!) and some white chairs, which I balanced out with the white oak hanging crate which holds my collection of vintage tea cups. The oversized art is a print from Juniper Print Shop which I had turned to canvas (you can see the whole post here) and I love how the muted peaches and pinks mingle with my pastel tea cups! The black and white art print beside the mirror is from Bold Tuesday (see other prints we have in the kid's room here) and the white pine frame was a road side find! The big basket on our table as well as the metal table in the corner and the crochet doily atop it were all thrifted treasures.
Can I take a second to get on my soap box about round dining tables? They are the actual best. For young kids, for small spaces, for inviting one last person to join around the table - they're just perfect! Rectangle tables can't sit someone at the corners (at least not comfortably, ha!), and they limit furniture placement, and typically take up more room in my opinion. Before we got the tulip table from Prunelle, we had a similar sized wooden oval antique table which we bought from my friend's grandmother. We refinished the wood with a grey stain but with the pale grey walls and no windows the nook was quite dark. We still loved that table and had it for five years, but when we started looking to replace it I knew I wanted a bright white table for our window-less space. We also used to have a rectangular hutch which we stained and painted to match our old table and instead of replacing it we just left that area open. I love how spacious the room feels, and now much brighter with the white table!
Mixing and matching chairs has also always been a favourite decorating style of mine. The bench is great for our kids and even younger guests, since almost all of our friends have younger kids than ours, and we already had these white mid-century-style chairs, but adding the wishbone chairs brought in some texture and shape, not to mention the warm ash colour. And of course, true to small space style, we often bring one or more of these chairs into the living room to accommodate extra guests for games nights or bible study.
I'm so pleased with our dining nook! It was finished around Christmastime but the winter and Spring were so busy I'm only getting around to posting now. It's our main place for homework, boardgames, hospitality, and creativity. The white table top is holding up brilliantly except for a couple of tiny pen marks that I can't get off to save my life - all marker and pencil scribbles wash right off with water though! Knowing that this table will be our forever table means I am more precious with it than I was with our previous hand-me-down tables, but don't worry, we still live very fully around this table and it has rapidly become the heart of our home!
Thank you so much to Prunelle for partnering with me on this makeover!
