Using a Desk as a Dining Table: An unfussy Solution for Small Spaces

Measurements come first here, because a good-looking piece in the wrong spot still fails. Do you have a small kitchen eat-in area or dining room? Using as desk as a dining table might work beautifully! Today I'm sharing how this solution worked for us in two of our past homes. (post may include paid affiliate links; for more information, see my disclosure statement {here})

In our first home, we had a small kitchen eat-in area plus you had to leave enough space on one side of the table to be able to walk past it to exit through our sliders to the backyard. Every small dining table I could find was too wide so I started thinking about using a desk.

After searching and searching for narrow tables without luck, I finally found a great solution – using a desk as a kitchen table! As a family of four, it worked beautifully because we could fit two people on one side on our upholstered bench from Ballard (similar to {this one}) and two on the other side in chairs:

The size was perfect. It was the exact length we needed to comfortably fit our bench seat but was 6″ narrower than our old table, giving us an extra 6″ of space to walk between our table and kitchen cabinetry. Another bonus, it had two large drawers, which were a pretty convenient place to keep placemats and napkins!

In our next home, we had bench seating on one side of our kitchen eat-in space again so once again we found ourselves looking for a smaller than typical trestle table. And once again we decided to use a desk as a dining table! I found the desk at the Restoration Hardware Outlet (it's unfortunately no longer available) and we were able to move the legs out closer to the ends of the desk to make it work beautifully as a table:

After renovating our kitchen, we ended up moving it to our office to use as a desk and found {this table} that was also a great fit:

Other Sources:  Capiz pendant (22.5″)  |  Geometric gray rug  |  Large blush abstract framed art  |  Blue floral framed art  |  Pink floral framed art  |  Slipcovered dining chairs (similar)

Look at my kitchen redo “before” and “after” for more details and pics of our gut redo.

I'll see you back on the blog later in the week!