Monday, December 9, 2013

The Dining Room

It's true, I lied to you back in October when I promised to have the Dining Room pictures up.  I am going to go ahead and blame my lack of blogging mainly on our terrible computer (although it's probably not true). We desperately need a new laptop, but we are waiting until after the New Year.  It takes me at least 45 mins, sometimes more, to upload pictures from the camera.  Then it can take me over an hour just to do a simple post.  I don't have that kind of time, or patience.  I'm hoping once we get a new laptop, you'll be seeing more of me.  But, I'm not making ANY promises ;)


I was inspired by the snow yesterday to take pictures of the dining room and do a blogpost.  Everything is pretty Christmasy in here, so things don't like quite like they usually do, but I am basically in love with how this room turned out.


I still don't have any window treatments.  I keep changing my mind on what I want to to do.  I love all the large windows, and the woodwork around them.  I realized yesterday how much I loved watching the snow outside these bay windows, and the large pine tree gathering snow on its branches.  That pine tree, that the previous owners planted when they're youngest was born, gives us a lot of privacy.  Which is probably why I haven't felt a lot of pressure to figure out the window treatments.


I bought the hutch off Craigslist way back before we moved in for $75.  I wanted something with lots of storage, but enclosed glass on the top so that things didn't get dusty.  I gave it lots of white paint, and painted the back of the shelves the same dark teal as the side table in the living room.  I'm basically obsessed with it.  I love how it turned out.  I also love that fits in this space so that when we're sitting on the sofa in the living room I can stare at it.


The large mirror came from my dresser that is in our bedroom, but I didn't want to use it there and it works great in here.  I had fun decorating it for Christmas.  


Yes, that is the same dresser that we did had in the living room.  I switched the dresser for an awesome old trunk that we inherited from my parents and I painted the drawers a darker color for in here.  I'll show you the trunk some day, but it just works better with the dresser in here and trunk in the living room.


I got this little buffet for $40 off Craigslist.  The size and mid-century lines were perfect,  but it was a little beat up on the top.  I didn't want another piece of white furniture in here, so I just painted the frame white.  After I changed the hardware on the drawers, and put a piece of nice paper on the door where there was a beat up woven screen, it was looking pretty good!  I need to find a better solution for the paper, but it works fine for now.


This shelf used to be in our bedroom in the old house.  We needed something here, and we wanted a place for the record player that was out of Brady's reach.  I don't love the lighter color wood in here, but it works for now.


I repainted the table because it desperately needed it.  I used enamel paint, and it worked awesome.  It is such a smooth finish, and wipes off so easily.  So far it has held up pretty well.

As far as things left to do in here, I would some day like another overhead light fixture, but this one is fine for now.  As mentioned before, I need to figure out what I want to do for window treatments.  And then lastly, I would like some new dining chairs.  2 of the wicker ones were too beat up, so we got rid of them.  I had these white ones on hand, and they work fine, but I may spray paint them until I find/can afford 4 new chairs.  I would ideally like something wood to offset all the white in here.


So there it is!  A couple other things to note, the paint colors are cashmere gray from Benjamin Moore on the top and Dark Storm from Valspar on the bottom.  The seashell print above the dresser is from Paper Source and was $4!  I have a couple other prints from there that you will see show up.  It's a  great option for cheap art!

I want to share the before pictures, and some of the process of taking the wallpaper down, but I'll save that for another time.