the dining room

I realize that many of you have now seen my house in person. That may make this post a bit anticlimactic. This shows where the dining room came from and helps you appreciate it a bit more.

This is the "before." Green, embossed wallpaper on top, plain white paint on bottom. Crazy octopus light fixture (not to mention the red leading in from the living room). Yuck. I haven't looked at this picture in awhile. It's funny how accustomed you can become to your surroundings. Or maybe my take on the rooms makes me feel more at home.

The one thing the room up there did have (in addition to the great floors) was the table. Duh, you're thinking. It's empty except for the table. But it's a special table. It belonged to my grandfather. My brother stripped and re-stained it and built a new leaf. It looks so good. Here's another look at that light fixture. It was the first thing to go.

Here's what I replaced it with:



Then I tackled getting some chairs to go with the table. We didn't have any and I didn't want to spend a bundle. Enter IKEA. They were simple, nude, and about $19 each.

Then I stained them.


And upholstered them.


And of course the room needed to be painted. And my brother and I turned our dad's old gun cabinet (hey, we're from the country, in Texas) into a cabinet for some of my stemware (hey, I now live in the city and a girl needs a glass of wine from time to time). I wish I had a "before" of this one.


Which brings us to the "after." Better, no? I wish you could get the change of the sense of space. The lighter color really opened the room up quite a bit. I've since hung some artwork. And the last step is a surprise. It's far down on the list but we'll get back to it one day.