Have you every done something in your home that you thought was fairly innocent and no big deal…and realized shortly thereafter that it would change the whole way you feel about your living space?
That’s exactly what happened to us a few months ago when we flipped our living room and dining room spaces in our home!
A Little Bit About Our Condo
When we bought our condo here in SW Florida, it was completely furnished. We brought a few pieces of furniture with us when we left Germany…but not much. We knew that the styles of furniture would be different here in Florida and weren’t particularly in love with any of the furniture we had. Plus we didn’t want to pay to move it.
In retrospect, we might have kept a few more things…but it also might have only complicated things further.
We have a couple of little nooks and not-quite-room spaces here in the condo, like the den, living room, dining room and sun room/breakfast nook. Aside from the two bedrooms, our condo has a very open feel to it, but because the kitchen has a floor-to-ceiling wall, you can only partially see into the other rooms. But you can walk in a circle from room to room.
Now when we moved in, the “dining room” looked like this:
We took some of the decor out and added our Bears in Berlin art to the wall…but somehow weren’t thrilled with the room.
Part of the problem arose with the narrowness of the room. If you want to use the pass-through door to the kitchen, you have to leave extra space next to the table. Which meant placing the table fairly close to the opposite wall.
It wasn’t squished, but somehow it was just not enjoyable to sit and dine in this room.
So we cleaned it all out and decided to reboot…
We moved the living room and TV into the dining room space. And put the dining room into the former living room.
This was the “living room” when we moved in…
And here’s how we first turned it around, hoping to make the room more practical once we’d moved the TV into it (from what had now become our office.)
It was a massively better fix for us…but as I mentioned, something just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was a feng shui thing that we didn’t even realize was happening. But the condo just didn’t feel comfortable or homey to us.
Now some might claim that has to do with using someone else’s furniture, and that will always play into it. But since the previous owners were only here part-time, and real neat freaks, everything was like new when we moved in anyway.
And below is the current layout of our dining room. Naturally, we have no intention of leaving it just like this. In fact, that lamp in the corner is already gone and we’re trying to figure out what sort of lighting to use to accent the Berlin art as well as brighten up this room. Because without any lighting of its own (just the fan) it’s very dark in here!
What We Learned
- Just because the floor plan says a room is meant to serve a certain purpose, does not mean you have to keep it that way. We never could have imaged what a huge difference a simple change can make. But because we like to entertain, and that usually involves food, having a large dining space is much more practical for us versus a huge living room.
- Sometimes one move leads to another. After using the living room here for a while, we’ve decided to move it yet again. While we love that we can talk to and see Mackenzie when we’re finishing up some work and she’s watching TV, we can no longer use the TV when she goes to bed at night because the sound travels easily to her room. And we’re not exactly keep on going to bed at 8:30 every night — although some nights we do welcome the idea lately. 😉
- A home is never truly finished. We’ve been here for a little over a year now and are just getting started…but even when you become content with something just being as it is (not perfect, but good enough), one small domino falling over can set off a huge chain of events. Like painting a wall or changing light bulbs. Trust me, there’s a lot coming up in our future as far as DIY goes…including building furniture!
Although spring is still a ways off, are you having spring creativity flashes already and an itch to get things in order? Or just staying indoors and trying to stay warm? What sort of projects are you working on or planning right now?
