It’s been more than three years since our last visit here, and today I am happy to share with you the living and dining room of S & Y’s Home. We have worked on this home in stages. We started with the master bedroom when S & Y were a newly married couple. When they were blessed with their adorable little angel, we designed her room for her. And now that she is a sweet young girl, they were finally ready to design their living and dining room too.
Living and Dining Room of S & Y’s Home
If you go through the makeovers of the other rooms of their home, you’ll realise that they have always preferred their home to have light, neutral colours. We kept this in mind while designing the living and dining room of S & Y’s home too.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me first start with the plan.
The Plan
When you enter the home, you have to walk down a really long passageway before actually entering the living space. Our first aim was to put this area to good use, and also make it visually pleasing. After all, this is the first impression of the home!
Next was the ‘L’ shaped living and dining space. The living area obviously went along the large, beautiful balcony. This left the inner wall for the dining area.
Placing a dining table in the middle of this would make the area look really crowded, so we pushed it into a corner. A round table with an ‘L’ shaped bench going around it really helped to open out the space here.
Finally, we built in an additional storage unit along the inner passage, leading into the bedroom. This has given S much needed space to organise all the household extras.
We fit in all of this in a way that has the living and dining room of S & Y’s home looking lighter than when we first started out!
The Entrance
But, first things first, so let’s begin at the entrance.
Since they didn’t want a separate main door and safety door, we have fixed an openable ‘window’ behind the safety grill. This means the main door itself doubles up as a safety door.
As you open the door you step into a passage that turns. We used the first part to place the shoe storage. This makes it most convenient to remove or wear your shoes as you enter or leave the home.
The next turn of the passage, closer to the living room, has the foyer console and mirror. If we had placed these on the opposite wall, you would be able to see them sitting on the living room sofa. But I thought it was more important that this wall looks friendly and welcoming as you enter the home. The way they are placed now, you can see them directly from the main door and they make for a pleasant view.
The Dining Area
Standing at the foyer console, you have a direct view of the dining corner.
To maximise the use of space, we placed a round dining table in the corner. On one side, the seating bench runs in an ‘L’ around the corner. On the other, we have 3 dining chairs to complete the circle.
Also, since we don’t waste any space in a small home, the dining bench has large storage drawers below.
Since S requested for a large storage unit in this passage, we made a floor to ceiling built in. That wall also has the main electrical box on it, and the unit helps conceal that too. Using mirror on the storage shutters really helps open up the space. In fact, I think that passage looks bigger now than it did without the storage!
The Living Area
With the full sized sliding glass doors stepping out into the balcony, the living area has a beautiful view and a whole lot of natural light. Since S & Y have family and friends over often, we maximised the seating space here.
On one side we have the sofa with comfortable chairs on either side.
On the opposite wall a slimmer chaise makes a happy seating circle.
The television is placed off to one side, between the entrance passage and the dining table.
S & Y got themselves a Samsung Frame television. They can select artwork from a whole range available online, and display it on the screen. Which means the television doesn’t look like a big black box when it is off, and actually adds to the visual appeal of the room instead of taking away from it.
The Balcony
We made great use of the balcony space too, with this outdoor sofa for comfortable seating on one side.
And these beautiful jute stools on the other. Pretty pendant lights and a whole lot of plants make it an outdoor haven right at home.
Look and Feel
This beautiful rug was the first piece we selected. We picked the beige from it to use across the living room, with blues and pink accents sprinkled in.
As you must have noticed, beige is the predominant colour right across. We have a few cushions in blue and pink on the dining bench for a pop of colour here.
The rug adds a spot of blue in the passageway.
The beautiful weave also adds a lovely texture, along with the textured shutters of the console cabinet.
We have pinks and blues in the artwork, and a hint of them in the cushions too.
And a whole range of pinks and blues in the artwork we picked for display on the television.
The pretty lighting adds to the dreaminess of the space.
Before and Afters
Here’s a view of the main door before we had anything to do with it.
With openings for a door and a window, a beam on the wall and a wainscoting running at waist height, this wall had too much happening on it. We simplified the look by using a uniform, wood finish wall panel across the entire wall. Black accents like the handle, door grill and name plate add the visual appeal.
A view of the passageway before..
We added a shoe unit to the first part of the passage and shifted the console on to the facing wall to make a welcoming view from the entrance.
The dining area…
Instead of using a dining table that needs to be pushed to and from the wall all the time to keep it out of the way, we formally pushed the dining table into the corner, with a seating bench going around it.
The living area…
We swapped out the large sectional for lighter and more comfortable seating.
Get The Look
Light on the eye and tough enough to handle a growing child and her friends. That’s the quickest way to describe the kind of products we were looking for this S and Y’s living and dining room. For instance, notice how we customised the coffee table we selected below? We added a wooden frame around the glass to protect it from breakage.
You might find some of these links useful if you are in the same boat.
| – 1 – Fern Cushion Cover | – 2 – Printed Velvet Cushion Cover | – 3 – So In Love Chandelier | – 4 – Daisy Metal Wall Art | – 5 – Vena End Table | – 6 – Bespoke Dining Chair | – 7 – Jute Braided Stool | – 8 – Revolution Rug | – 9 – Abby Coffee Table | – 10 – Ivory and Blue Kilim Dhurrie |
With the living and dining room of S and Y’s home done, we’ve finally completed this home… quite literally ‘one brick at a time’. Well, at least one room at a time!
Me thinks, it was well worth the wait! Don’t you agree? Click here to see the rest of this gentle home.
There’s going to be another wait before I reveal our next full project right here. This is a short one though.. just a week to go for our next gorgeous home to go up on the blog! Sign up here so you don’t miss any of it.
Until next time,
.
Photography: Biju Gopal of @bizou.photos