Dining Room Update

As promised in last week's post on these chairs, I'm sharing more photos of the dining room today. We aren't finished in this room, or any room in the house, but we have made quite a bit of progress since the last update. I've told you all about the table and chairs already, but we've acquired a couple more pieces of furniture over the past year. You'll probably notice first that the walls are a different color; we painted them Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore. It's a really nice neutral shade, not too dark or too light, and more importantly, not blue-tinged or purple-tinged or green-tinged...just a really beautiful color. We went through a lot of samples at our local Benjamin Moore shop before deciding on this one. It's been almost a year, and we're still really happy with it. You might remember that the pendant light was the very first thing we changed in this room, before we even had any furniture.

This sideboard is just to the right of the window. That drawing was done by my dad's cousin in 1961. It's a little funny because she signed and dated it, and we have the same first and last name (we were both named after the same aunt). Handmade things from family members are the most precious heirlooms to me. :)

We bought this cabinet from Crate and Barrel to house china that's been passed down to me. It ended up being the perfect size. Initially, we were looking for something vintage, but we couldn't find anything with the right dimensions. I love this little cabinet. The paneled glass doors echo the window in the back door, and the shape is a good compliment to the red bench that sits on the same wall (in the next photo).

Here's the other side of the back wall. Yes, there's always a random assortment of garden things on that bench, and usually muddy shoes underneath. This is right inside the back door, and since we don't have a mud room, I tried to make a cute little corner for stashing stuff until it can be moved elsewhere. The handmade bench is from Signed and Numbered and the blueberry print is from anek.

An assortment of treasures on top of the white cabinet. I always wish people would talk about their collections rather than just say, "um, here's stuff and things." So, each object gets it's own photo below.

This pink house is actually a little box; the roof comes off, and the house is hollow inside. It was made for my grandparents by a friend of theirs many years ago, and my grandmother gave it to me when I was just out of college and moving into my first apartment. (Maybe this is when my obsession with pink houses began? I don't know, but I sure love this one a whole lot.)

I bought this assemblage art piece/clock, what I call my "Good Day Box," about 14 or 15 years ago at a craft show in Baltimore. It still makes me happy every time I look at it. (I can't remember the artist's name at the moment, and I've misplaced her card. When I find it, I will update this post.)

This stoneware doe vase came from Anthropologie last year, and I got the flowers from a local antique shop. I might change out the flowers for other things in the future, but right now I think she's really pretty like that.

This brass candleholder was another gift from my grandmother and those are my great-grandparents in the background. (You can see a clearer photo of them in this post, if you're curious.)

I took a couple of photos of the sunflowers just because they're nice.

So what do we have left to do? Well, I want a large painting for the right wall, and it will probably take us a while to save up for that. I might paint something myself, but I don't know. It's funny, when we went to Gari Melchers' house a few weeks ago, the docent made a note that although his paintings were hanging in the living room when we were there, he would not have actually hung his own paintings in the house. She went on to explain how a lot of artists don't hang their own work because that's their "work," and it's hard to get out of the critical mindset you have when creating it and just enjoy it the way you would enjoy other art. I was like, you don't have to tell me lady, I get that. I really get that. So, we'll see.

We've also been back and forth about getting a rug. It would be nice to add some more color and pattern, but what you can't see from these photos is the other half of the room, the living room. Our house is an open floor plan so it all needs to work together. We're thinking we do want a rug for the living room area, so having a rug in here also might be overkill. But if we do, again that would be something to save up for because most of the rugs I really like aren't cheap.

And the last big addition is two more dining chairs for the heads of the table. I want chairs that are different from, but still complement, the chairs we already have. We haven't really even started looking properly for those.

So that's our tiny dining room! I'm hoping to get to a point in other rooms where I can share more updates soon! I posted sources below, and I linked to specific items when I could find them. If I missed anything, let me know in the comments. xo, Mary

Source list: chairs/vintage; dylan dining table/CB2; curtains and curtain rod/West Elm; sheer curtains/Pottery Barn; Paterson white cabinet/Crate & Barrel; Norden sideboard/IKEA; lined wire baskets/World Market; blue planter/Home Depot; white pitcher/IKEA; everything else I think already mentioned above. :)