So excited to share a first peek into our new home! Granted, it’s a small peek, since the rest of the house is filled with boxes or in the midst of a project, but that only makes us that much more grateful for a serene dining space!
As I shared here, we sold our old center hall colonial last fall to search for a smaller home. The perfect house turned up just as we reached the one year mark of renting - a cottage craftsman with just the right amount of projects and the perfect amount of cozy. It feels like home already, and we’re excited to continue making it our own.
First up - the dining room! The dining room is open to the kitchen in this home, and we’ve already used it about 100x more than in our previous home when it was a separate room. There’s just something about a “kitchen table” that just makes you want to linger and relax. It’s just a little less formal, and we are all about casual around here.
Our South Seas Console from Serena and Lily was one of the first things we pulled off the moving truck when we moved in, since I knew we had the perfect spot for it - tucked in right underneath the window. It’s a generous size at 66 inches long, but at just 17 inches deep, it doesn’t overwhelm a smaller space (and for spaces too small for the console, the South Seas Bar Cart and Side Cart would be a great hub option - and something I kept in mind since I wasn’t always sure we’d have space for it in the dining room of a smaller home when we were house hunting!).
The console table was one of the game changers with the dining room refresh in our last home (which we talked about here last year), and I don’t think we fully appreciated how versatile it was until we moved, both in terms of function and style. The South Seas Console in particular is perfect for both formal and casual spaces depending on how you decide to style it. As for functionality, the two levels of the table are great for simply curating a collection of favorite items to display as a sofa table, or putting it to work serving food as a dining room buffet table. It could truly work in any room of the house.
We used the South Seas Console as a buffet table in our more formal dining room in our last house (pictured below!). With a bigger home, we didn’t need to use it as much for storage per se, but we loved using it for serving and entertaining. It was a perfect focal point on one of the larger walls in the room, and paired perfectly with the Blake Mirror (which we can’t wait to hang over the fireplace in our new home!). We loved the warmth and texture the rattan offered in a room filled with mostly wood furniture, and it lended a bit of a more relaxed feel to a room that leaned more formal.
In our new smaller home, we’re putting it to more use as a buffet and bar, with a little bit of storage mixed in. Our wine and cocktail glasses have found a home on the top of the console table, as well as a bowl of sweets, always. A fun fact: my grandfather would always give my sister and I two Hershey’s Kisses after dinner, and so having a bowl handy has become a sentimental staple in our home.
The bottom shelf is evolving, but our cutting boards and table linens have found their place there for now. Convenient for sure, and why not have a stack of pretty linens at the ready right next to the table?! Side note: would love to add these napkins from Serena and Lily to our collection.
Our new dining room is decidedly less formal, and I love how the console elevates the space, again adding warmth and texture next to our wooden dining table and chairs.
I suppose I’ll wrap up this ode to the South Seas Console by saying that it’s truly one of the most versatile pieces we have in our home. It works just as well in a craftsman style home as it did in a colonial, fits just as nicely in a smaller home as it did a large home, and would work just as well as a sofa table or media console as it does a dining room buffet.
Next up for this space? A light fixture (we have our eye on the Rosecliff Chandelier from Serena and Lily), maybe a couple of stools for the kitchen island, and of course - original art (I love this one!).
Excited to share more as we update our cozy little cottage!
*This post was in partnership with Serena and Lily, a brand we adore and whose products we regularly use and love. The post contains affiliate links, and If you buy something through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission, at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting the brands that support The Yellow Note!