Sep 28, 2021

open plan dining + social hub | our house renovation story

Hey there, it's Emily here the founder of our shop, someday designs. As you may have seen on our instagram feed we have spent the last couple of years renovating our Victorian terraced home in South East London. I live here with my husband, Paul and two young sons, Teddy and Flynn.

Given I chat to a lot of you about the homes you are currently building, renovating or decorating, I thought it might be helpful to 'invite' you into ours and show you the individual spaces we have designed to suit our modern family life - all with the Scandi-inspired style you know we love!

Today, I'd like to share with you the heart of our home - the open plan dining area and social hub - a new light and airy space created on the ground floor by filling in our side return and extending outwards from the existing house.

To give you a sense of scale our kitchen is 8m long by 5m wide.

someday designs renovation story | open plan dining and social space

Centred around a large dining table that comfortably seats 10 for entertaining, we carefully considered this area as a place to eat, relax and socialise. We placed our dining area next to a large picture window with bespoke built-in corner bench seating, allowing us to cosy up in the window seat and enjoy an uninterrupted view of the garden. The bench seat gives us more flexibility (you can squish in more bottoms this way and add additional storage within) and choosing a picture window means natural light floods into the space creating a connection between the indoors and out, which was a key decision in our design brief.

Next to this we have created a snug seating nook, bridging the space between the open plan dining area and the kitchen. It's roughly the size of a 2 seater sofa and here we enjoy reading stories with the children and its a space for us to relax in together. We collaboratively worked with our builders to design this bespoke low-level floating birch-ply bench, and with local upholsterer Micaela Sharp for our seat cushion.

To tie it all together we also added bespoke birch ply panels to create a slatted wall along one side of the dining space. This has helped to enhance the elevated ceiling height in this area, it adds texture and interest as well as providing a sense of character to 'zone' the space.

Above the table we've hung the Muuto Strand Pendant which creates a beautiful canopy over the dining table. Made from resin, it gives off a warm 'cocoon' glow and due to its light-weight nature it doesn't block any light from the window or compete with the surrounding scheme.

shop the look

We love Scandinavian furnishings with clean lines and neutral tones. We find it such a versatile style and effortlessly blends the new contemporary aspects of our house with its original period features. If you like what you see here then it's easy to create a similar look in your home as many of the pieces are available to purchase from our shop.