i heart ikea

We quite regularly have family and friends over for a meal and for drinks so our oak dining table gets quite a lot of use, unfortunately so do the matching leather upholstered chairs which the cats like to use as a scratch post (all six chairs). So when updating our home we are planning to invest in some beautiful, scratch resistant furniture. We will keep the oak table as it is fantastic and can extend to fit 8 people (10 if feeling cosy) so we have been looking for ideas for the seating.

I love this picture from Christina Coop's house tour on apartment therapy, the mix of the bench and the chairs is something that would work quite well for us with having the open plan living dining room.

Our table and the range it is from originally had a matching bench, this seems to have been discontinued (along with the table), so until we find the perfect match we are going for the pocket friendly Norden bench from ikea.

I also love the ikea PS slingra chair but think that this wouldn't work in our space ...

... enter the nordmyra, simple enough without being too bland.

Not to obsess about ikea but we are also planning on getting two of the knappa pendant lights, I love the soft diffused light that this gives off, no glare in the eye when you are at the table ... perfect.

I guess the first meal that we will have to serve in the revamped area will be swedish meatballs!