Shafferland 3.0: The Dining Room!

When I moved into my first home (which later became our first home, or Shafferland 1.0), it had a proper dining room. It was actually the same size as the living room and it caused me nothing but consternation the entire time I lived there.

I wasn't very good at consistently entertaining back then - and about the time I became good at it, I was also a commuter and married and never home. It felt like the dining room was just this huge amount of square footage that we never needed and always wished we could add to a different room - like the living room!

So we moved to Kokomo. Shafferland 2.0. The house had no dining room at all, and we shrugged and said we didn't care, because obviously we didn't need it. Except we learned that when we lived and worked in the same general area and were actually home, we had time to entertain. That's why we ended up finishing the garage. It was our spare dining room.

We're pretty excited that our apartment has a dining room. (Or should I say dining cove?) We are looking forward to having people over and entertaining them in this delightful little space in the corner of our main living area.

And we're excited to use our dining room table as a proper dining room table again! You may or may not remember that in our Kokomo house, this was our desk in our office, because we didn't have anywhere else to put it!

In the above photo, I'm standing in our living room with the TV to my left. That doorway in the upper righthand corner is our guest bathroom.

In this picture, you can see how the space sits in relation to the kitchen!

The dining room table used to belong to Ryan's mom and stepdad, and years ago (before we were married) they upgraded to something newer and set this one aside for Ryan. He didn't have room for it at that time, so it went into storage out at the farm. Shortly before we moved to Kokomo, we picked it up and used it (briefly) in that baffling dining room we had there. Then, as I said, it became our desk in Kokomo. And now it's back to being a dining room table. We have a couple of leaves for it in case we ever need to make it longer, but this is how it sits at its smallest. I have dreams of one day doing a color upgrade to it, but it's really a beautiful piece even as it is. It's solid!

The buffet belonged to my grandparents and was our coffee bar for a while. After that it was a spare dresser. It's catch-all storage for us now. It's pretty worn from a long life and some coffee pot damage, so we would love to do some refinishing work on the top of it at some point. But for now it serves its purpose well.

Our "Shaffer" sign was a wedding gift. The two watercolor paintings are of our two previous homes. We're going to have my friend Amber paint WillowBridge, so we left a space for it! :) You might recognize Brutus, Ryan's rhino that previously lived in his cloffice at work. And the rose is what he gave me when he proposed! That middle piece is something I found at Sam's not long ago, and I thought it would be perfect for holding our breakfast bars and fruit. We've also been able to use it for community events, so it's got a double purpose!

Here's a closer shot at the paintings. We love them dearly.

And here's the little collection behind the dining room table. Our clock was one of the first gifts I bought Ryan after we got married. All three of the other pieces were gifts to us.

The same little pitcher and salt/pepper shakers we had on our table in Kokomo. In case you are wondering, we sold our beloved little farmhouse table to the people who bought our house. They loved it, and it was the perfect fit in size for that kitchen. We knew we didn't have room for two tables, so we elected to choose the one that could seat our company.

One more peek at the room - from the kitchen:

We do keep the table pushed up against the wall, since we don't need all the chairs every day. It buys us a little more room on a regular basis. :)

So that's our little dining area. We can't wait to have our first dinner guests!