Dining Room Conundrum

[Snowshoe]

I am looking to get a dining room table to replace my two, one of which is too big and the other is too small. From my MIL and my mother. But I would like to keep my Mum's buffet. There is only one wall the buffet will fit along and if it does a table can be no wider than 36 inches. It is proving very difficult to find a table 36" x 60" with a leaf either new in a store or on Kijiji.


A wider table would fit if I butted the side of the buffet up to the wall and had it project it's 51 inches into the dining room. But then the blank, unfinished back side of the buffet would be on view from all the seating in the living room. The buffet is 33" high x 51" long x 18 inches deep. Plain but old, solid wood and in good shape.


Would this look too weird? Would you put fake doors on the backside? A painting? A nice quilt? If you would do this at all?

Here is one example showing a table 40" x 60"

[K10]

Are you wanting to keep the buffet as a buffet, or would you ever want to re-purpose the buffet? I've had friends re-purpose sentimental furniture that didn't go quite where it should in their house... one made an old entertainment center a closet for pots and pans, and the other made a dresser into a buffet. They are both far more creative than I am, so each of their looks really worked, but I'm willing to bet if I ever tried to do something like that, people would wonder why I had a dresser in my dining room!

I think you can get away with arranging the room the way it is in your picture though, and I like the idea of fake doors on the back. I don't think anyone would know that it was the back of something else that way.

[smartrock]

I think I was born without an interior design gene. I just wanted to say I like your dog on the sofa and dog or cat toys on the rug in your schematic.

Here's one 36" wide table, but I agree they don't seem plentiful. 36 " Rectangular Dining Table With Leaf

Let us know what you come up with!

[SunDance]

Can't really tell from the drawing, but could you put the buffet backside against that upper wall and (do you realize that if you write sco-o-tch, it'll spellcheck into scotch?) s.c.o.o.t.c.h. the table further to the lower left corner of that room? I like the look of offset but can't tell if you have the room.

Love the dog and other critters.

[POPTOP]

Like you, I love old family pieces. I actually have an old buffet and hutch in my living room and a smaller set in the kitchen which is kitchen/dining room combo.

There are so many ways you could disguise the back of the buffet.

[Snowshoe]

Yes, I would use the buffet to store infrequently used dishes, my big casserole dish, some flower vases, napkins etc.

My living room furniture is Roxton solid maple in the light colour. It's not being made any more. It's sort of casual, country looking so I would either like to match it exactly (faint hope) or have it so different it doesn't look like I tried to match it and it didn't work. I have gone to see some pieces and some were lovely and some were junk, from Kijiji.

LOL, the dog and cats, the black splotches are a cat and a kitten, are part of the programme. It's free on-line, helped us to see which of Mum's own furniture pieces she could take when she moved into a retirement residence and move them around on the plan without having to muscle them around in real life.

Create floor plans, house plans and home plans online with Floorplanner.com

Barb, like this? Room design guidelines I found say you need 3 feet of space around a table to get the chairs out. You know if you click on the picture it gets bigger, right? This time I left a red bookcase in, but outside the room. It's three feet long and everything is to scale. The bookcase gives an idea of how much walking around room there might be.



Fran, do you have some ideas to share? One I had was to put the bookcase backing onto the buffet. We already have that bookcase, it's two inches higher than the buffet but it might work.

Oh, and Mum had her table right in front of her dining room window. She never opened those windows and when we first moved in there was central heat so a big heat vent in the middle of the floor but no small vents in front of the window. We have forced air so I'm reluctant to block off the heat to the window as that helps keep it clear of frost in winter. And we open and close that window daily. Plus, the cats for sure would be up on the table if it was in front of the window.

[SunDance]

I was thinking more of leaving the table "vertical"...just couldn't visualize the room for the chairs at the end nearest the inner (bottom) wall. Your cat actually looks like a large ferret...the kitten looks like a cat. You can tell that's not a real dog because a real one would be chasing the ferret. (sorry...it's past my bedtime....)

[JC001]

Just tossing this out as something to think about if you don't have to have the table and all chairs always available.

I don't have 3 feet around my table for chairs. The most that usually sit there is 2 so the table is much too close to the wall and window for people to pull out chairs and sit on those sides. The 2 chairs that are mostly used have more than 3 feet around them. When there are more people, the table gets moved out from the wall and window. I don't like it in that position permanently because it isn't centered in the room but its ok for when it needs to be used.

[bett]

why cant you either cover the back of the buffet with wood and stain it, or what about a drape that barely covered the top, and covered the back?

(drape is not the right word but too many pain pills have made me dopey. you know,like the fabric people use on a baby grand…..)

[Snowshoe]

Just tossing this out as something to think about if you don't have to have the table and all chairs always available.

I don't have 3 feet around my table for chairs. The most that usually sit there is 2 so the table is much too close to the wall and window for people to pull out chairs and sit on those sides. The 2 chairs that are mostly used have more than 3 feet around them. When there are more people, the table gets moved out from the wall and window. I don't like it in that position permanently because it isn't centered in the room but its ok for when it needs to be used.

Yes, that is what I will do. It's just the two of us as well and in my plan in the OP the table does pretty well butt up to the, for the sake of this discussion, the "north" wall. I'd pull it out for guests. It's our only table. We don't have an eat-in kitchen. So even with only two people, and being used for 33 years to a 48 x 60 table, I'd like to have a table as big as possible.

The big table we have is sad. It was my MIL's. It's solid, heartwood, cherry. She bought it thinking it had been made by her Grandfather but later found it was the wrong one. She bought the correct table, then had two solid cherry tables and we'd just gotten married, she gave it to us. MIL had it re-finished by someone who destroyed the original finish (which was in bad shape) and thus destroyed any antique value it might have had. It dates to the early 1800s. It's a double drop leaf, gate leg. When the leaves are dropped down no one can sit at that end. No one wants to sit in the 20" middle part because the apron is so low it hits people's knees. It has only three pieces of wood on the top, each 20" wide, and one has badly cracked. When the leaves are up and the gate leg is out there is only one leg in the middle of that 48" width and weight put on a corner is not supported. It's just a poorly designed table and it really isn't a family heirloom since it turned out to Not have been made by a family member. But I feel really badly about giving it up anyway.