Dining Room and Kitchen
Executive summary: Our downstairs is basically one large open space, so all the rooms have to complement each other. I’ve taken my usual minimalist approach and done what I can in the dining room and kitchen within the constraints of the Stanford faculty housing rules.
Our wide-open floorplan means that everything flows into each other, so it’s important to ensure that the living room, dining room, and kitchen are consistent aesthetically. Just as with the living room, I opted for the same tension rod plus cafe curtain solution for the small window in the dining room (not pictured below), but decided to leave the 12-foot expanse of sliding door + side windows uncovered. These look into the backyard and are not much of a privacy concern, as no neighboring homes loom over us (we got lucky with this lot). The rest of the dining room is filled out with pieces we already had: farmhouse-style trestle table, Thonet bentwood-style chairs, a large cabinet (that’s empty outside of a few piano books), a stool for reaching into high kitchen cupboards, and some of my favorite art. I decided to keep the existing light fixture instead of hanging our “moon light” here as the focal point (it’s gone to the downstairs playroom for now), but that’s a simple swap in the future if I decide I want my moon light to grace this space after all.
Dining table: Target | Dining chairs: Target | High chair: Stokke | Cabinet: IKEA | Gold tray: West Elm | Canvas art: Minted | Stool: IKEA
The kitchen is behind the living room and super simple design-wise. My dream kitchen would have a pretty backsplash (plus different cabinets, counters, and floors … so basically everything), but we’re not allowed to make changes like that inside Stanford faculty housing (it feels more like renting than owning in this regard). So I swapped out the boring white pendants over the kitchen island for these blue swirled glass ones that I had in the condo, to add some visual interest. I could perhaps paint the walls in lieu of a backsplash, but that’s not a project I’m ready to commit to yet. In our condo, I applied contact paper to the side of our island (see post here) to add some pattern and color to the room, but I haven’t made up my mind on whether I want to go through the hassle of doing that here. Being behind the living room, perhaps there is enough going on visually overall that I can leave the kitchen as is. I am a minimalist, after all.
Pendant lights: Shades of Light | Fruit bowl: Home Goods | Water pitcher: HomeGoods | Dish rack: Yamazaki Home | Marble paper towel holder: Crate & Barrel | Gold bowl: HomeGoods
As with the rest of the house, this kitchen is much bigger than I need — most of the cabinets to the left of the stove are empty. I only venture to that side of the room to access the fridge. How many extra steps a day do you think that gets me?