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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Dining Room Dilema

We are having a dinner party next week and there will be too many of us to fit in our dining room so we'll be dining alfresco ala patio. It's got me wondering what to do with our dining area when we re-design the kitchen ....

Should it be kept as a small dining area?
Or should the kitchen be extended out and have the dining elsewhere?
Do people dine alfresco all year round or would this restrict out dinner parties to daytime events (no doubt turning it into a bbq!)?

This small dining area next to the kitchen is what I have to work with. We’ve had a few dinner parties here and it’s a bit of a squeeze to fit 4 people comfortably. Not only that because you're so close to the kitchen there’s no hiding the mess and seeing the leftover food and dishes sitting there doesn’t make for a very elegant dining space.


Dining and Kitchen before we moved in

I love sitting along the kitchen bench for informal meals and am toying with the idea of extending this out to fit up to 4/5 people and doing away with the dining area all together.

I have a low buffet wine cabinet that would fit nicely along the wall for extra storage and fill the space without overcrowding it.


The future plan is to knock out this window and put in french doors that go out to a deck, so this area will need to be left fairly open with a walkway through the middle.

A reality check tells me that a deck is about 2 years away but I still need to be mindful of this when designing the kitchen.


So with no space for a dinner party inside there's no choice but to take it outside .... dining alfresco under the patio. Doesn't sound too glamorous but I think if I prettied it up a bit outside it would work.

But I'm more thinking long term, this is what we would have to do when having the parents over for dinner or a group of friends so I'm just not sure how comfortable this would be all year round like on a cold winters night.

This is our patio at the moment .... in need of some sprucing!

Maybe I just need some outdoor dining inspiration to see what can be done with the humble patio in turning it into an outdoor dining space.

Hmmmm what to do .... advice anyone?


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3 comments:

  1. Your house is lovely! Get a couple of those outdoor heater thingos. We have one and it extends our dining out experience. Mind you, you're right, it usually ends up as a BBQ ...

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  2. Detachable blinds that you can roll up or down if you want, and then use then with your deck when you get to that part of the house. Doesn't need to be on all sides, just the most open ones. And as Leanne says, a heater goes a long way!

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  3. i think outdoor dining can be done brilliantly.

    outdoor blinds can be hung that keep out of the wind and cold in winter, add some heaters for warmth, either gas ones or we have two little open fires that we put wood in and they heat up beautifully [cost $60 each] and we have a big [15m x 5m wide] patio area that is open on 3 sides.

    string some fairy lights up, put candles in empty pasta jars on the table, or use lanterns of some kind for lighting.

    i actually prefer outside dining to inside, even in winter when having people over and you can do it without it turning into a bbq!!

    ~x~

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