Transforming a Dining Room into a Fabulous Wine Lounge

Is there a room in your house that you don't use because the expected purpose of the room does not agree with how you live?   That was the case when my clients in Keller hired me.  They had a formal dining room that was located near the front door.  They had a large open floor plan with a kitchen, breakfast, and living room toward the back of the house, and outside of that area was a beautiful outdoor kitchen, covered patio, and gorgeous pool.  They rarely (if ever) used the formal dining space because they were more casual and relaxed in their entertaining.  Here's the picture of the “formal dining” room before the transformation began.   This was the first room that visitors saw when they arrived, and it felt very disjointed from the rest of the home’s style.

You may notice that they had a wine refrigerator and several bottles of wine stored in this room. When they called me, they had a brilliant idea that I was on board with immediately.  "Let's turn our unused dining room into a wine lounge!"  I was beyond excited to help them do just that.  I drew up a sketch, hired a cabinet guy, and we were off!

We wanted space for two refrigerators, lots of cubbies for wine bottles, and areas to store glasses as well as a countertop to serve from.  In the rest of the room, we chose new lighting, a right-facing chaise sectional, two bucket swivel chairs, a rug, and a cocktail table.   

This was our mood/design board that propelled us on to the purchasing.  The construction took a while, but the details were spot-on.  The open cabinets would have glass fronts and gold hardware. The dreamy marble backsplash would even go behind the glass-fronted cabinet doors so that light would still reflect well. We installed strip lighting inside the wine bottle storage areas to give a high-end look.

I absolutely loved how this turned out!  Now they will use this room frequently and enjoy every moment in it. This custom feature looks EXPENSIVE too. The picture below shows the (almost) completed cabinet.  One refrigerator was delivered damaged and had to be reordered. The sectional also took a while for delivery, but good things are worth waiting for.

When I wear my other hat as a home stager, I'm always thinking about resale you know!  The additional benefit of this transformation is whenever they sell this house (if they ever do), this cabinet will still totally make sense if the new owners want to use this room as a formal dining room.   What do you think? What kind of multi-functional room will make sense even when selling a home?  

Thanks for stopping by and "Cheers"!