Inside: In decorating my son’s first bachelor apartment, we were challenged to come up with chic small dining room ideas for the alcove off his kitchen.
In Part 1 of this series, I described how my son moved into his first apartment with not a piece of furniture to his name, and how I helped him furnish it staying true to both his personality and his budget. The first post revealed his living room area and can be seen by clicking HERE. This post will take a look at the kitchen, dining area and terrace of this young man’s bachelor apartment.
The kitchen in a rental apartment is in large part pre-determined, so a good part of our efforts had more to do with scrubbing than decorating. Still, an assessment of what you have to work with is essential and selecting items for the counters that are both useful and make a design statement goes a long way to lending a decorated air to the space. We went with sleek black and silver to complement the appliances and further the clean urban look dictated by the living room design.
Hand towels and napkins are a classic white, while the fruit basket recalls the industrial look of the adjoining room. We made sure to cover enough counter space to make the apartment feel lived in, while leaving enough open space for a clean sleek look. The drawers and cabinets are organized with the utmost precision, leaving counters free for necessary workspace. This is something that’s easy to do when living in your first apartment before you’ve had a chance to amass a good deal of clutter and it’s a great time to establish organizational habits. What you do in your first apartment is likely to follow you for years to come.
Right off the kitchen and adjoining the living room is a sun filled but small dining space. The retro kitchenware photograph gives the space a little bit of styled attitude. (If you read about the silver bowl in Part 1, you may remember I mentioned there was one other item my son didn’t necessarily love. This photo is that piece, but he chose to ‘learn to love it’ rather than go back to the store to return it… lol!)
We continued the industrial theme with a square dining table with simple clean lines and a mix of rough and urban materials, with wood top and metal frame. As a contrast to the hard edges of the table, the chairs are upholstered for comfort with nail head trim for a little bit of edgy fun. (See resource list below.)
The sun that streams into this room comes from the lovely little terrace that overlooks the city, as well as the wall to wall windows.
This great little bistro set was just the thing to fit into my son’s budget and allow him to relax outside.
For my son, the terrace became a delightful place to wind down after a day at his new job, overlooking his new city.
And who can resist a beautiful sunset?
Bachelor Apartment Source List – Click on the items below for direct links to the products. Where actual items were no longer available, I’ve provided similar options. (This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.)
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these (click on the photos):
Part 1 – The Living Room | Part 3 – Bedroom & Bath | Tiny Urban Apartment
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Lory,
Efficient and sufficient for a young mans apartment!!!
Love the rustic and the refinement in the dining area!!!
I can cleary see the bistro set is growning to be his “favorite” spot!
Fondly,
Pat
Indeed. Not a very sturdy set but it gets the job done. Glad it made it through tornado season. So not used to worrying about that being an East Coast mom… 😉