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*Today’s post was made possible by Loloi, and features gifted product for the purposes of a candid review. All opinions are my own.
I’ve got some kitchen updates to share with you today! In case you didn’t know, we turned what traditionally would have been used as an eat-in dining area in our kitchen into a small open concept lounge with a sofa, chair, and a couple of tables. John and I use our formal dining room pretty much every night, and when we’re not eating meals there, we default to the attached bar seating at our kitchen peninsula. We really had no need for an additional eating area inside our kitchen, so we decided to make it a seating zone instead.
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The really cool thing about this decision is that it has become a hub for whenever we have family over to visit. We almost always end up plopping down in this area for casual conversation, and it allows us to keep snacks and drinks under constant supervision on the countertops nearby since our kittens are still pretty notorious for counter surfing—especially when food is out. Long story long, this seating area is just perfect for us and gets used all the time.
When I decided that this was the design direction I wanted to go in for our family initially, I was pretty thoughtful about ways to make it feel intentional since it is a little bit of an unusual choice. I wanted to make sure the colors blended well with the kitchen and that it felt warm and inviting. I’ve gone through a few different iterations in terms of art, furniture, and rugs, but I feel like the design has finally settled into something that feels like us. Before, I was playing it a little safe with color, but I shifted into celebrating some of our very favorite pieces of furniture and art (namely, the beautiful vintage leather couch we’ve had for 10 years, and my Bernard Chathelin prints), and now it looks and feels like home.
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Another important addition that ultimately completed the design was a new, more colorful area rug for the seating area. This is the Loloi LAY-04 rug in the color “Ocean/Rust,” and it’s one of my all-time favorites from Loloi. If you remember way back when, we actually had it in our primary bedroom at the old house. I’ve always loved the vintage-inspired, intentionally faded flat printed pattern (so easy to keep clean!), and the earthy colors are just perfect for this mid-century space. There are shades of rusty orange and brown in this 5′ x 7′-6″ rug that perfectly complement the leather and stained wood furniture, and the blue tones in the rug speak to the light blue paint color we have on the lower portion of the walls.
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The rug really helped ground this seating area and bring it all together. The design finally feels complete, and I like the new cozy, richer color palette that we’ve landed on. It’s true what you hear all the time from professional designers: a rug can easily create a distinct zone in an open concept space, and it can be really helpful to draw colors directly from your rug to give a room some cohesion (or vice versa—you can choose a rug, like we did, based on the existing color palette of your space). Click here to shop our Loloi LAYLA area rug today and tomorrow with special Amazon Prime Day savings!
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*This post contains affiliate links, which means that I may earn a small commission when you purchase products that I recommend at no additional cost to you. This allows me to provide free creative content for you to read, save, and share. Rest assured that I never recommend products we wouldn’t use or don’t already love ourselves.
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