Round of excuses

There are two goals for this posting. First, to introduce the last part of the living room which you have not seen yet - the dining area - and second, to discuss a major dilemma regarding the dining room chairs.

The dining area is located next to the Vodder credenza. It consists of a table for eight people, chairs and a light above the table. As you have seen in the previous postings, we also have a separate breakfast table next to the kitchen, but in addition to this we thought it would be nice to have space for group of eight diners. Easier said than done.

Looking out for snacks

The question which dining room chairs should one choose can be a tricky one. Of course, the perfect chairs do exists being a set of Kjaerholm's PK9 in cognac leather or Wegner's CH24 Wishbone chairs. However, the Kjearholm ones happen cost a small fortune thus being absolutely out of our range, and the Wishbone chair seats are woven paper cord (not a great match with small children, and they are bit of a cliche anyway). Therefore, we are forced to consider other alternatives. Up until now we have been quite happy with our current choice, the Eames plastic DAWs by Vitra. The DAW is an arm rest version of the famous Eames plastic chair, which was launched in 1948 for the Museum of the Modern Art low cost furniture design competition, being the very first industrially manufactured plastic chair. 

The DAW was originally produced by Zenith plastics in Los Angeles as a fiber glass version (the famous rope edge chair). However, due to the environmental pressures both Herman Miller and Vitra started to produce it in injection molded version, which are the ones we currently have. Originally, this chair was launched with a rod base, and the DAW base which we have in our chairs was actually used for a very short time period during the 1950's. It was brought back to manufacturing only several years later. The chair works well around the table but also equally nicely as a side chair or a study room chair.

Eames DAW

As much as we like the Eames plastic chairs, they have one fundamental problem considering our dining room. We would like to fit two chairs on each side of the table and one on each end, but unfortunately there is not enough space between the table legs on the sides for two chairs to be pushed under the table when not used. Having eight of them would be just too much, even in temporary use. Therefore, all four chairs are on sale in Huuto.net, either as single items or as a set of four. If you are interested, do not hesitate to contact as by email (theolivegreenwindow@gmail.com). 

Another interesting topic is the choice of the dinner table light. Many of you know and might even have the Lokki light (also known as Lentävä Lautanen, the Flying Saucer) by Yki Nummi. Very few lights have gained such a prominent national status as the Lokki in Finland or the famous PH5 by Henningsen in Denmark. The George Nelson Bubble lamp has a very similar status in USA. It became the mid century pendant light of choice by the Average Joe. We usually prefer vintage, but in this case we chose a later production series instead, as the cover material in the older lights tends to turn ugly yellow with age.  

Nelson Bubble Light by Modernica

Those of you who visited our old apartment might remember our old ROUND dining room table. As we now have a bit more space and aim seating eight diners at the same time, we "upgraded" to a Piet Hein's Superellipse manufactured by Fritz Hansen...well, almost. When searching for a large round table to our old apartment, we came to notice they weren't widely available. Therefore, we bought a set of original legs from an auction house and ordered a custom made table top separately. Now, it was easy to change the table top to something which greatly reminds the Superellipse (Our apologizes, Piet!). We usually don't like cutting corners this way, but somehow this can be justified by significant wear and tear caused by kids. 

DIY superellipse

So if you are wondering which dining room chairs we have set our minds at after selling the Eames chairs? Well, keep on reading the blog and you will find out, as the HDP model is actively being used in chair search!