Our Cosy Space for Coffee, Tea & Dining

200

Coastal Living
HDB (BTO)
~1,000 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Welcome back to our home! Today we'll be featuring the biggest headache of our home renovation - Dining space. If you came from our Home Tour post, you'll know exactly why! Our dining area is in the form of an almost full U-shape so you can imagine how confining the space is like, and how difficult it was to "open" up this space.
This was the original state when we first collected the keys and the wall you see on the left? Yup, it's non-hackable!! >:( We almost gave up styling this area because nothing seem to fulfill the requirements we wanted that were within our $40k budget, which were to: 1) Have a Dry Pantry for Coffee Machine & Water Dispenser (55cm depth) 2) Brighten the space 3) Make it spacious enough to accommodate an extendable dining table or extra chairs for hosting family & friends
Thankfully our ID did not give up on styling this area & came up with what we now think is a brilliant idea! A corner full height cabinet + half glass frame at Study Room to allow natural lights to enter this space. This photo was taken in the day and look how this space finally lit up compared to the previous photo! Best part? We get the light but not the heat! Can't imagine having to dine next to the window with the heat & sun shining right at us.
This is how it looks whenever guests come over & chill at this cosy corner! The curved walls were not all planned till we had to pull a water inlet pipe to the water dispenser at the corner cabinet. So eventually we decided to box up the ugly metal pipes & do curve LED lights to soften the look. No regrets because it looks so symmetrical & nice! Tip: If you expect to purchase a water dispenser down the road and don't want to place it next to the Kitchen Sink or Washing machine area like us, you have to communicate that to your ID / contractors so they can plan and pull water inlet & outlet pipes upfront and conceal them behind your carpentry.
Another reason why we needed a corner cabinet was because the water dispenser model we wanted requires approx. 55-60cm depth to cater for the water pipes at the back, and cup holder at the front.
We also really love the textured wood of our Dining table and bench as it truly brings out the farmhouse look, but they're not lacquered wood so water / food spills & prolonged heat might cause some damage in the long run.
This is how we style our dining table on most days. But instead of stressing ourselves / guests to prevent spills and take good care of our table, we got a custom-made transparent table cover to prevent that!
One of our best buys for dining area has got to be this beige + light wood chair from Taobao! It's fairly easy to setup and most importantly, there's sooo comfy and soft!