An IKEA Hack Creates Cozy Seating (and Storage) in This Dining Nook
In New York city kitchens, storage and square footage are hard to come by, which is why it’s so impressive that Carolina S. Ortiz’s 1929 Upper East Side apartment came with an eat-in dining nook — and that she maximized the storage and style within it.
Carolina’s apartment, before she began renting, had all gray walls. She asked for those to be painted a brighter white before moving in, and then she added more personality.
Wallpaper provides a botanical pop of pattern.
Carolina covered her kitchen’s back wall in botanical wallpaper — more specifically, fern-patterned peel-and-stick wallpaper by Etsy seller RoomBloomArt. “It was thick, so it was harder to install than some others I have in my apartment,” she recalls. “Overall, [it] took me about two hours total.”
She also hung some plants that act as a window treatment, as a kitchen isn’t a space where you worry as much about privacy. “I have fake plants hanging from a curtain rod,” Carolina says. “I can’t keep plants alive, but I love having green in my space.”
IKEA cabinets add bench seating and storage.
Speaking of green, there are custom green cushions made by an Amazon vendor that sit atop Carolina’s DIY bench seating, made from IKEA cabinets with sliding doors (the exact product Carolina used is unavailable, but you can find similar storage cabinets from Wayfair.
“I wanted to make sure I found benches that could double as storage, so I looked for different types of cabinets and storage units that could fit in the space, and used painter’s tape on the ground to test out different unit measurements before I made a purchase,” Carolina says. And her table is from Amazon.
Carolina says the bench frees up room to store “more things like appliances and serving platters comfortably in the kitchen.”
“I love hosting, so this allows me to have all the things I need to have friends and family over!” she says. “I’m super organized and like having a designated place for everything, so when one piece of furniture can play double duty, it’s a win for me.”
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