Clearing Out The Breakfast Room

I'm still clearing stuff out, getting rid of things we don't use.  You can read about why I got rid of our ottoman in THIS post.  Tuesday, I actually got rid of 3 things:  a toy bench,  the crib mattress (sold the crib a few months back but saved the mattress to be used for a toddler bed that we borrowed and are no longer using,  and one of our dining room sets.  Today I'm going to talk about why we got rid of the dining room set and ask for your opinion on what I should do with that now empty room.

Our house has a breakfast room, a formal dining room, and an eat in kitchen with seating for 9.  We had seating to feed 25 people, sitting down with their own chair and table space.  Talk about overkill.  We have never feed that many people at once.  Even when we have our annual New Year's Eve party, it's not a sit down meal and most people stand while eating and mingling.

As far as everyday usage, we stick to eating at the kitchen island.

And should we have a guest or two over (or more kids), we have three additional seats at what we call the peninsula.  

When we have another family over, or I feel like being fancy, we use the formal dining room.  

When we first moved in, we had this set in the dining room. It was generously given to us by a family member, but I never liked the style of it.  It was a high quality, well made piece of furniture, made in Denmark and made from teak but there was something about those skinny rounded legs that I just didn't like.  The chairs however, were very comfortable even though I did not like the look of something with such a low back.

So that's what we had in the dining room and we had a not so nice table with chairs that didn't match it, in the breakfast room.  Don't have a picture of that since the chairs are long gone and the table is currently being stored in the basement.

About two years ago we inherited this set from another generous family member:

I liked it much better.  I love the mission style and the higher backed chairs.  The legs were chunky and not rounded at all.

The fabric on the chairs even matched our dark plum walls.  It was a perfect fit for our dining room.  So the Danish teak set got moved to the breakfast room.

We haven't used the table and chairs in the breakfast room in years.  So I thought why not sell it and put the room to better use.  We actually tried to sell them on a high end furniture site and craigslist a year or two ago with no luck.  However, when I listed them on craigslist again, about two weeks ago, the timing must have been right because someone was looking for this exact set and wanted them.  Tuesday night they came with a moving truck and bought the set.


I began to wonder if I had made a mistake.  Those chairs are very comfortable and my husband really didn't want to sell the set.  But I just didn't like the looks of it, and we didn't use it.

So now what am I going to put in that room?

Before it was sold, I took out all the leaves to see how the table looked when it was round.  It looked nice, I mean a round table would look nice in there, not that table since I don't like the style.  So I don't know, maybe we'll get a small round table and chair set and set that up in there.  But then again, I don't see that being used either.  Plus my husband would say, we had a round table, why sell it and buy a new one.  Does he not understand how much I disliked the style.  No offense to anyone who does like that style.  In fact it wouldn't be half bad if we had other furniture to match it, but since it didn't match anything in our house,  I liked it even less.

So back to the question, of what to do with that room.
Another idea I had was to turn it into a playroom with some Ikea Billy bookcases made to look like built ins.  They'd frame the doorway and wouldn't been seen from the kitchen view.

Sort of like in this photo HERE:

You can check out my Pinterest board to see what else I'm thinking about HERE.

The only trouble with making it into a playroom is that I'm afraid it will just be a big mess of toys and won't look nice.  Right now we have the kids' toys in their bedrooms and the living room.  We'd leave most of the toys in the kids' bedrooms there but the toys from the living room would all get moved into the playroom.

What other space could it be?  A sun room?  Get a comfy chair and a side table or ottoman and make it a nice spot to read and relax?

What suggestions do you guys have?  Feel free to link up pictures and inspirational ideas/photos.

For now the room looks quite empty and I'm wondering if I made a mistake.

Thanks for stopping by.  I am looking forward to getting some great ideas.  I'll be sure to keep you posted on what I decide to do with this room.

Christa