Dining room finished?

 

We bought a new table from Pier 1, and we love it. We wanted something airy that didn't cover the awesome walls.We also hung the mirror that Rachel's parents gave us. We were going to paint it but decided against it, looks too good as is.

Before/After: Dining Room

Found this old picture from about two weeks after we moved in; before I had added the chair railing and window panes to the wall, or painted, or added crown molding or even had any furniture.

DIY: Succulent centerpiece

Full disclosure, I didn't invent this idea, I got it from an Etsy crafter "Haunt PDX" who sells this for $65:

 

Being a crafty kind of guy, I got a piece of wood from my parents woodpile (the largest piece they had) and squared it on the table saw to give it some angles. Then, used a forstner bit to drill out the area where the succulents will go. Sanded it a bit, primed it and then painted it. 

To come up with this:

 

One of the reasons I think it's so cool is because it has this rugged/outdoorsy feel to it but the gloss white paint means it's a bit more sophisticated. The wall detail in our dining room is fairly traditional but the over-sized print and the carved out white log holding five succulents isn't. Yin. Yang.

Dining Room Status

Note: we took back the upholstered captain's chairs, we weren't totally sold on them. Still looking for their replacements.

Big art is cool

Weird shadows

Our chandelier puts off some weird shadows but otherwise the new gray paint is looking cool....

Dining room update

More painting of "cathedral grey" is in store today. Made the wall squares yesterday.

Art for dining room

@costplus $159 on sale

Dining Room 2.1

So the blue on the walls wasn't quite right. It was a little too primary blue, like the blue you find at preschool along with red and yellow. So we started to brainstorm about other colors and have settled an a light gray. This a neutral, that isn't boring like white or beige...but can just as easily be tailored to accompanying colors, whatever they may be.

We want to have a sophisticated, yet modern look so, I think we are sticking with the gray scale and will have black and white with our decor with maybe a big punch of color at the very end. We are both happy with the color choice, so I am excited to move forward!

Oh, and Jeremy has put a few of doors on the bookcase....he is SOOOO close! Can't wait, can't wait!

Dining room update

Crown molding is up and spackled and caulked and ceiling is painted "white white" (first coat). 

Crown molding is up

 

Gosh I love spackle and a compound miter saw and a second pair of hands.

This weekend's project

Will be adding crown molding to the dining room ceiling this weekend as well as painting the walls the blue (Regatta Blue) as seen in the center of the picture below:

We got these chairs from Marshall's a few days ago, we've had such mixed success with chairs that Rachel literally had to twist my arm to get me agree to them, I think they look good now:

In the background: The doors have been constructed and removed from the bookshelf and are waiting to be painted.

Dining room table

 

We picked up this dining room table off of Craigslist for $300. Comes with two leaves so it'll fit 8 people easy.

Another angle:

 

note: you can see in the picture above the moulding I've added to the room, both the mid-level wall moulding is new as are the squares.

Dining Room squares

Until I ran out of wood...