If your house is on the newer side, you probably have a large eat-in area in your kitchen or maybe you even have a hearth room or breakfast room that your kitchen table calls home. Maybe even something as beautiful as this:
On the other hand, if you have an older home, your kitchen eat-in area may be teeny like mine. Well, I’ve finally come up with a two-part solution for making my tiny eat-in area a whole lot more livable. I blogged about the first part of the solution last week – replacing the chairs on one side of my table with a kitchen bench seat. My bench seat has a straight back so that it can be pushed all the way up against the wall, allowing the table to be moved several inches in that direction and freeing up valuable space on the other side of the table. The second part of the solution was to find a kitchen table that is a decent length but not nearly as wide as a typical table. (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})
After searching and searching for narrow tables without luck, I finally found a great solution – using a desk as a kitchen table! I ended up with Ballard Designs’ Whitley Desk, which I found at the West Chester outlet for over half off its regular price:
The size is perfect – it’s as long as our old table so it can comfortably fit our bench seat on one side and two chairs on the other but it is about 6″ narrower than our old table so I’ve now got an extra 6″ of space to walk between our table and kitchen cabinetry. Another bonus with using this desk as a kitchen table is that it has two large drawers, which are a pretty convenient place to keep napkins! Of course, not all desks are going to work well as kitchen tables due to their size or how they’re constructed but I’ve rounded up several other desk options that may work if you’re on the hunt for a smaller kitchen table:
*Restoration Hardware’s Flatiron Desk has a reclaimed elm tabletop and cast iron base, which create an industrial feel. The desk is the same exact design as RH’s Flatiron Tables, but the dimensions of the desk (there are three size options) would allow for it to be used in smaller spaces where the flatiron tables wouldn’t fit.
*Restoration Hardware’s Garment Factory Desk would also make a very cool kitchen table. It has a cast-iron base and aluminum top and again has an industrial feel.
*Restoration Hardware’s French Partner’s Desk is an absolutely gorgeous reproduction of a French neoclassical desk. It comes in two size options that would be great for a kitchen eat-in area:
Do you have a favorite desk? The Whitley desk has been working out really well for our kitchen space but as I mentioned before, the poor thing is a bit banged up – this weekend I’m planning to fix the her up with some wood putty and Annie Sloan chalk paint – I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Update: I got my table all painted up and she’s a beauty! You can see my full post with tips on using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint {here}.
Thanks for stopping by!
NZ says
That’s what I wanna do and wanted to see if any one has done it. Thanks for sharing this! My only concern is that the table I like has drawer on one side but not the other. Not sure if it’d look weird in person. Unlike your house, I don’t have one side facing the wall. One side is facing the living room and one side to the kitchen and island. I might choose to face the side with drawers to the living room.