Room of the Week: Marvelous Multitasking
Read all about this double-duty dining room
Fewer than half of all people regularly dine in their dining room, according to several articles I’ve seen. Yet I’d wager that many of those people who eat primarily in their kitchen, living room, bedroom, or favourite restaurant still dedicate a room of their home solely for special-occasions dining.
That’s fine, if your residence is capacious enough that you can afford to relegate a space for use just 2% of the year.
The rest of us should do what designer Colleen Simonds did for a client: allow the room to serve as a library as well. Heck, even if you do regularly take meals in your dining room, why not let it pull double duty?
The custom built-ins seen above can store anything from extra tableware and linens to board games to guilty-pleasure paperbacks one might not want to display. (Surely that’s not just me…) The use of café curtains rather than full-length drapes keeps the ambience light and inviting, as does the delicious glossy salmon colour of the millwork.
And speaking of fabulous colour…
That wallpaper (Jacob’s Stripe grasscloth by Peter Dunham Textiles) is a stunner. Not only does it ensure that the marble fireplace surround and other traditional elements don’t weigh too heavily on the lighthearted vibe, but it also makes adding more colour into the room easy-peasy: So long as a hue matches one of the stripes, it’s certain to work in here!
Looking for more dining room inspiration? Here’s a trad-with-a-twist space by Gordon Dunning, an example of quiet luxury by Glenna Stone, and a rhapsody in off-white by Monica Fried Design.