The dining room is one of the most overlooked areas when it comes to remodeling the home. Often, this room gets remodeled as part of a larger home remodel, either a full house project or a kitchen remodel where the dining room is adjacent. If you do decide it’s time to remodel your dining room, you may be surprised at the number of options that are available to you beyond the basics of floors, walls, and ceiling.
Open Floor Plan Remodeling
In many homes, the dining room, living room, and kitchen flow into one another in what is known as an open floor plan. This means that any remodeling of one of these spaces usually ends up spilling over into the others, simply because all three spaces are likely to have the same flooring, moldings, ceiling type, and even wall color.
There are other things that you may want to consider for your dining room remodel if you have an open floor plan, however.
The first is to consider built-in cabinets in the dining room that match the overall finish and style of your kitchen cabinets. The difference is that while your kitchen cabinets may be completely closed with solid doors, your dining room cabinets should be at least partially open or have glass inserts. By building cabinets into your dining room, you open up storage for things like linens, silverware, and china that might not have a home otherwise. At the same time, by building instead of purchasing a hutch, you can mirror the kitchen, which is important when the two rooms are open to one another.
The second thing to consider is to divide the dining room off from the other rooms slightly to help give it some dimension. In many open floor plans, the dining room and living room are one open space with no definition. You don’t have to lose your open layout to help define the space, however. By introducing columns, or by bringing the walls in just slightly to create a wide, open doorway, you can preserve the openness of the two rooms while giving your dining room more dimension than it may have had previously.
Separate Room Remodeling
If your dining room is not already part of your living room or kitchen but is a defined space all its own, you have other remodeling options as well. In this case, you may want to consider what type of space you want the dining room to be. Is it used at every meal, or only formally? Is this a traditional style room, or do you want to have a more modern setting?
If the room is used all the time, rather than only for formal settings, consider opening it up more to the kitchen. Creating a half wall breakfast bar to the dining room, or opening up a “keyhole” in the wall between the rooms can help make your dining room not only feel larger but also makes it more accessible. By being able to pass foods indirectly from the kitchen, you can cut down on serving time, and allow people in both spaces to communicate more easily.
If the room is going to be more modern in design, you may also want to speak to an architect, builder, or design firm about the possibility of removing a wall between the kitchen and the dining room to create one large open room. Formal or traditional spaces may be better off staying separate from other spaces, but can still benefit by having built-in cabinets, or having the flooring laid to accentuate the center of the room, such as having a border inlaid around the perimeter, or having the flooring pattern change as it approaches the table.
Give Some Thought to Your Dining Room
The dining room may get overlooked from time to time, but it’s still an important part of your home. Give it the same consideration as you would to the other spaces surrounding it to help ensure that your home has balance both structurally and stylistically.
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