dining room goods: the details

thank you all for your sweet comments about our dining room here. it was really fun developing this room over the past, ehemmm, four years. i had amazing inspiration (my brother, jamie's painting). having great inspiration is so important; it reeeeeally helps a lot.  for me, looking at blogs all day long doing lots of research and taking things slow until i get things right seems to be working. that being said, there are still some aspects of this room that i would like to improve on: the rug, the accessories on the buffet, the table (LOVE the table, but it really belongs in our kitchen) and the general "styling" of the room. for now, since the room is somewhat completed, i'm going to sit back and wait for exactly what i want. (or what happens to be dirt cheap at a thrift store, or better yet, free!)

listed below are some of the details from the room. there will be a few more posts to follow including some tutorials, or at the very least, some pictures of my progress as i worked on things like the curtains, vanity bench, and china cabinet.

disclaimer: this post might be one of my longest. if you make it to the end, then you must really like it here. that, or you're my mom. either way, i thank you and i love you. ;) 

paint color

sherwin williams "black fox". i may have told some of you it was gray fox. it is not. apparently foxes can be black too. who knew?

it looks like charcoal gray on the paint chip, doesn't it? but in the pictures and at night it looks pretty brown. we weren't expecting it to look brown at all. i was hoping for really dark dark gray. but it's gray enough and i kinda love it.

painting

this is one of my brother's original watercolor paintings. gosh, i have no idea what the name of this painting is. i wonder if it has a name. jamie????  i'll have to ask him.  anyway, i found the painting unframed, leaning against a wall in the middle of a stack of other paintings. at this point, i didn't own any of jamie's originals. so, in my best most sweetest little sister voice, i asked if i could have this one. he said yes.  i did a little happy dance. oh my goodness....the colors in this painting! i wish you could see it in person. i have no clue how he achieves these colors with watercolor but man alive is he good at it. my father-in-law made the frame. the wood is reclaimed pine. the boards came from my brother's art studio. yes. the same place he painted the painting. cool, right? my mom designed the space and tore out some old rafters in the process. she kept them and they have since been made, by my father-in-law, into a changing table for my daughters and this frame. (you can click on the pictures to see them full size.)

buffet:

this is my best craigslist score yet. you can read about how it was "meant to be" here.

lamps

the lamps are from marshall's. they were $29.99 each. i'm not really head over heels for the lamp bases. i think i would prefer something a bit more clean and modern to contrast with the buffet. glass would be great. but the teal color was perfect and the price was right. i debated whether i even wanted lamps. now that we have them, i can't imagine not having them. we turn them on at night and the light in the room is so pretty...i just stand there like an idiot and stare.

stuff on buffet

a few months after i bought the buffet, the lady i bought it from had a garage sale. she is an interior designer so she was selling some good stuff. everything on the buffet (except the lamps) are from her sale. i think each of these things were about $1 each but i bought so much stuff from her that at the end she was just giving stuff to me. score!

vanity bench

$15 at a local antique store. it used to look like this:

now it looks like this:     (tutorial coming soon)

blue chair

this chair was my grandparent's and a long time ago it was my great-great-grandparent's. the shade of blue is a bit dirty for this room but i just don't know if i can paint over it. there are a couple of reasons why. 1. this chair used to sit in my grandparent's bedroom. it sat to the left of a dresser. on the other side of the chair was the door to their closet. see how the front left leg of the chair is a bit worn?  i am sure this is from the vacuum cleaner bumping into it, or from an occasional suitcase hitting it on its way by. whatever the reason, it's a reminder that this isn't just a chair. it's a chair that my grandparents used and lived with and bumped into. i cherish those "proof of life" flaws.  2. my grandma was an amazingly organized woman and did a great job with family history and archives. she glued little notes on the bottom of important furniture so that we would know where it came from. on the bottom of this chair is a little yellow piece of paper. in tiny perfect printing it reads, "Hand made by "visiting" carpenter to the home of Aaron and Malinda. 1870's. Was painted black with gold stencils...rather primitive."  now, if you know my grandma, you probably know that she didn't mean "rather primitive" in a nice way. she was not saying, "this is a primitive chair, therefore it's special." those who know her know -without a doubt- that she meant, "the black paint on this chair was way too old and dark and so i painted it this beautiful robin's egg blue and doesn't it look so much better this way?" and this, my friends, is why i cannot paint over this chair. i actually love this blue and i love my grandma for making it her own and painting a "primitive" antique that was her grandmother's. i mean, just imagine, you inherit a chair that was your grandmother's. it was built by hand in the 1870's by a visiting carpenter-a friend of the family perhaps?- and most likely painted by said carpenter or said grandmother. and then you paint. over. it.......blue.   yep. that's exactly what i would've done! love it. (and just to let you know...if you ever have a carpenter "visiting" your home, hire him to build you a chair. this thing might as well be poured out of concrete. it is by far the most solid piece of furniture in my whole house.)

 

rug

pier one. i am not lovin' this rug in here. but in here it will stay until i can figure out something better, and free.

table

i bought this table for $50 at an antique store in reading, ohio near cincinnati. one of my best purchases ever. i love this table and all of its green-ness. i bought this soon after we bought our first house, before children and while i was working for debra moreland. the antique store was down the street from where i worked. i stopped in one day and saw the table. i thought it was adorable. i loved the legs and the three leaves that got tucked away inside. and for $50? um, yes. i'll take it! so i paid the nice lady who was working and told her i would pick it up in a few days. that night cincinnati had one of the worst rain storms ever. well, probably not ever. but it was bad. we were watching the news the next day and there was a woman being interviewed about the roof that caved in on her business. i said to my husband, "that woman looks really familiar." as the interview went on i started putting it all together. antique store, reading, storm, roof caving in, no insurance....."uh, you know that table that i just bought? the one i already paid for and we are picking up tomorrow? i think the roof just caved in on it." we went to pick up the table and as we approached the store it was clear that there had been some serious damage. i walked in the front door; the entire back part of the store had no ceiling. i could see the sky. the store owner remembered me and happily showed me around the corner to where our table was waiting for us; safe and sound. apparently, it was one of the only things in the store that didn't sustain any damage. it didn't even get wet! this green watermelon table was so meant to come home with us. i get questions all the time about the finish. i have no idea who painted it this way or why, but they did a great job. the paint has held up so well over the past 10 years. like the blue chair, it's another piece of furniture that i'm just not sure i'll ever be able to repaint. it's truly one-of-a-kind.  (child pretending to be a dog under table....also one-of-a-kind!)

chairs

the chairs are from target. you can buy them here. they are $67.99 for 2.

book shelf

this is the "spine book shelf" from west elm. they no longer make this one. i had been obsessing over this thing and then one day they were just gone. no where to be found on the website. so i called. they had a few left. bingo!  they do carry similar styles here. cb2 has a very similar version here.

china cabinet

this is from my great-aunt's house in ohio. we bought the house from her and lived in it for one year before moving to SC. i talked a little about the china cabinet here.

curtains

"lenda" curtains from ikea.  LOVE these curtains!!! these are the long ones and run around $24.99 per pair. i did alter them a bit. (tutorial coming soon.)

curtain rods

home depot.

chandelier

i found this chandelier at one of our local habitat for humanity re-stores. it was a whopping $7. (plus a can of white spray paint and a trip to an amazing old-school lighting store to buy a little tiny hook that was missing for one of the crystals.) (mom, i have come to realize you are my good luck charm. you were visiting when i found the buffet and this chandi. it's always a fun adventure. thanks!)

i think that covers it all. whew! is anyone still here?  well, i know krista is, because she's a "details" person. believe it or not, there is more. i have before and after tutorials to post on the curtains, chandelier, vanity bench and china cabinet. help me decide...which one should i post first?

XO,

~elisabeth