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Dining Anyone?

My dining room area has gone through many transformations since I first purchased my home.

I love a fireplace but I don’t understand why they placed one in such a small dining area.  In the course of 11 years, this room has been painted at least three times.  They say one sure way of changing the mood of a room is to change the color of the walls.

My dining area is pretty small however it serves the purpose and many meals have been shared here with family and friends.

When I moved in I brought along a formal dining room set, a table, 6 chairs and a china closet.  The china closet had to be placed in the living room because the dining area was too small to accommodate the piece.  I loved that set it had two extensions that went with the table. The extensions allowed the table to expand easily to seat 12 or more people comfortably.  The extensions certainly came in handy during large family gatherings.  However, this set was clearly too large for the space.

Once I got rid of the table Brandon who is my youngest son came home from college to find a different dining set. Needless to say, he was very disappointed. My motto is creating memories not realizing my son had lots of his own memories around that dining room table.  Moral of that story I now give him a heads up about projects in the house that may require me to remove furniture.

Dining Room Makeover

This beige French barrel dinette set was given to me by a good friend it was in excellent shape.  I had always admired the set.  My friend’s name is Kim. She asked me if I would like the set, of course, I said yes without hesitation.

I took the window measurements in the dining area and the kitchen and went to a local blind shop and purchased custom blinds for the sliding door, dining room window and kitchen window. Once I purchased the blinds I installed them myself. I also shopped for fabric at a local fabric store to make toppers for all of the windows.  That was one of my projects during that particular summer.  It took some time but they really turned out great.

I loved the set that Kim gave me but I decided to make some changes to the chairs. Fabric selection has a lot to do with the decor of the room.  I found fabric at a salvage store while visiting my sister in Akron, Ohio.  I recovered all four chairs.  This was one of the easiest projects that I ever completed.  The most difficult part of upholstering a piece is removing all of the staples. Please believe the chairs from this set contained a lot of staples. The room started coming together like a well- laid plan.

Do you have a home decorating project that you are proud of? I would love to hear about it.