Dining Room Progress

My dining room area has been a work in progress since we moved in. Other than the great windows that let in beautiful afternoon sunshine and pleasant breezes, I'm not a big fan of this space. It's just too small to really accommodate a family of seven and my hutch. There is only one wall to put the hutch on, and it doesn't leave enough room to center the table under the light fixture, which is centered on the window. This annoys the heck out of me. My other complaint it that with the open floor plan, which I am not a big fan of either, by the way, the dining room didn't have anything to set it apart from the rest of the living area.

This is what the dining area looked like when we first moved in.


Lots of reds and yellows and greens. Dark, heavy curtains. Crackle finish hutch. Tan walls. Heavy, boxy table.

I started working on lightening the room. I hung some breezy curtains, filled my hutch with white dishes, installed a lighter feeling chandelier.


But I knew that I was just getting started. Here's where we're at today:



I have some finishing touches I'm working on, but I've been anxious to share the progress I've made so far.
I love that the new chair rail defines this space and sets it apart just a bit. The table was a Craig's List find a couple years ago. It opens up to comfortably seat 10. I just recently refinished the table top in a red mahogany. The covering on the table is a quilt top that I started making seven years ago when I was pregnant with my second to youngest. I pulled it out recently, determined to finally finish it. It is made from vintage fabrics that were once my mother's maternity tops. And for good measure, there are pieces from one of my father's shirts he wore back in his college days and on into my youth. It's the only quilt I've ever attempted and despite the fact that the baby I was making it for is almost 7 now, it will remain baby-sized. I put it on there to give you an idea of the feel I will be going for in this room. I am working on adding some vintage farmhouse touches and will be creating a piece out of more of the same fabric remnants.

On top of the hutch you can see my great grandmother's bread pail, my big enamel pitcher, and my vintage kitchen scale. That area needs to be reworked a bit, but it's a good start.



I am very happy with the feel of the room and the direction it is moving in. Doesn't it feel so much less oppressive? It's a much brighter and happier room. I can't wait to finish up some of the details and share a final reveal!
One last look:

Linking to the March Before and After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick!

Updates and a Sneak Peek

Remember I said I would have some great after pictures for you? Well, let's start in the basement. I spent the morning cleaning and organizing and moving stuff around. Although it is still a lot of stuff, I did haul out a couple bags of clothes to go to Goodwill, along with a few other items. I went through the kids' clothes that were in storage and pulled out lots of things they can be wearing now. I finally got all the Christmas stuff consolidated and packed away properly. I also consolidated Kennedy's stuff down into a laundry basket. I put all the building supplies in one corner and, the best part, cleared the pathway to my food storage and freezer.

(You are seeing the backs of our Christmas caroler decorations. I finally brought them in since we were experiencing a heat wave. I have to store them with their backs to the door so they don't creep the kids out. I must admit, it can be a bit unnerving to walk into the basement, flick on the light, and see four people staring at you.)







Last night Lincoln and I (mostly Lincoln) got the entire wall insulated. Now we're just waiting on that door order to process so we can close this section off.

Another after picture I took was of the weather. Remember the day I took Jesse to the park?


24 hours later it looked like this around here:


I'm not complaining. It IS January, after all.

Today (like most days, honestly) my bed is unmade and piled with laundry. I just walked in to find the dog there:


That's her idea of a great way to spend a winter's day.

The other project I have been working on is something I'm pretty excited about: A face lift for our dining area. This has been in the works for a while. Back in the fall when I painted the trim, I painted the bottom portion of the walls in the dining area in the same white, intending to install chair rail. Considering our open floor plan, I thought the chair rail would be nice to kind of set the dining area apart. The thing that has held the process up was choosing a paint color for the top portion of the wall. I finally took the plunge with the Glidden color, Polished Limestone. I LOVE it! It is light and bright during the day, a little more warm at night. It is similar in tone to the other grays in the house, but leans a little toward green. I painted yesterday and today I am cutting chair rail. Unfortunately I need one more piece of chair rail, so this project probably won't be done today. But as promised, a sneak peek!

The Dining Room

So along with this decorating change I talked about yesterday, I decided I really wanted to lighten and brighten the dining room. So let's look at past dining rooms, the current dining room in its before state, and where it is now, still a work in progress, I'd say.

Let's start with our last house. I have a picture of the dining room that I remembered to snap after I had started taking down the horrendous wallpaper border. The floor was carpeted in a lovely mauve. Ugh.


Unfortunately, my good after pictures are lurking in my old computer, waiting for us to find a way to free them. So this is all I have. We painted the trim white, sage green under the chair rail throughout the house, and in this room, a lovely red on top. I spray-painted the light fixture in a hammered metal finish and ended up with lots of compliments on it. If you look in the corner you can see that at that point we just had exposed sub-floor. We later installed beautiful Brazilian Koa wood floors. I wish I could get my hands on a picture...


Now we can look at our current house. The dining room is part of an open concept floor plan, open to the kitchen and living room. We didn't paint the walls, just added our reds and greens and golds. Warm, but a bit heavy and getting rather tiresome. And although the light fixture is nice and fairly up to date, we've never really liked it much. It's just not us.



So, here's what I'm working on. I found this light fixture at the Habitat For Humanity ReStore for $8.00. I liked the simplicity of it, but hate the brass. But I had been searching for something like it to redo. So here it is in progress.


My husband does not like the fake candle look of these candelabra style fixtures, so I ended up taking the tape off the candles and painting them oil rubbed bronze as well. Now it just looks like the whole piece is metal.



I switched out the items in the china hutch to mostly white pieces, as well as the plates in the wall hanging.


You can also see in that picture that I replaced the heavy, dark curtains with some nice light, airy ones from Ikea.

So, overall, a lighter, brighter look. I'm hoping to do some trim and molding work eventually, as well as few more decorating touches. (I've painted the picture frame to the left of the hutch in black. What a HUGE difference. I love it. I'll get a picture up soon.) But so far, we're loving it.