The Dining Room

The dining room was one of the biggest attractions for me when we looked at this house. The wall of windows opening up into the living room was so wonderful. As someone who had been an apartment dweller for 7 years I wanted light so badly.

Some befores...

This is when we first bought the place, post popcorn scrape. The light fixture was gaudy brass-tastic. The walls were a deep red and the wainscoting (along with all the trim in the house) was a beige-y off white color.

This is after the initial coat of paint, nice white wainscoting, and new light fixture. The table and chairs were another borrow from my parents. It stayed exactly like this for probably a year.

Then I saw this beautiful black lacquer table on clearance at Pier 1. And I knew it was the one. The curve of the legs, the shiny black goodness, the size, it was all perfect. So I brought it home with me for only $300.

The wall color was one of the first things I painted an actual color in our house. The color is Purple Basil by Martha Stewart for Home Depot. I probably went through about 5 different purples before I chose this one. I knew we could go dark in this room because of all the windows and the fact that the wainscoting covers half the walls. So I decided to go bold and I totally love it.

Then after months of searching on craigslist I finally found the perfect chairs. Only $100 for all six. Huge score!

I painted them white, which took forever because the Texas summer started right when I got them. It took me six months to paint all six. It was just too damn hot to work during the summer, so they just sat there.

 I managed to find a thin black and white stripe fabric from High Fashion Home for only $10 a yard, so I spent $80 total. Then we saved up for upholstery which cost about $350. If you're keeping track including spray paint we spent about $600 total on the chairs. $100 each for custom chairs? Not bad if I do say so myself.

Then came one of my ultimate scores. The bar cart. I snagged it at, you guessed it, Canton. For only $55!

It needed some TLC but I thought that was all the better. I polished it up with some brasso, tightened the screws and bought some pretty paper from paper source to cover the shelves. The shelves were some fake faux wood or something.

I made a template for the shelves out of plain paper to make sure I got it just right. Then mounted the pretty paper with spray adhesive.

And bam, a whole new piece!

I do love it so.

Meanwhile I managed to score this beautiful art deco china hutch from some friends who were having a garage sale. I don't remember what we paid for it exactly because we bought several things altogether but it was stupid cheap. I had plans to cover it with paper one day.

Again the paper in the hutch is from Paper Source mounted with spray adhesive. Its amazing how much I use that stuff. Definitely a good item for your tool kit.

The fabric was a splurge. I had been searching for the perfect thing for months and on a trip to NYC I saw this fabric at Mood and just knew it was the one. It was my birthday gift that year. We needed a lot and it was $40/yard. I think we spent over $600 for everything. Then my mom and I sewed them together ourselves. It sounds like a lot but again, when you think about how much Anthropologie charges for curtains, it really is comparable. And no one else has these curtains. They MAKE the room!

The light fixture still has that generic home depot light we originally installed under there. I just wired a giant drum shade I got from a showroom at Dallas Market over it. 

The curtain rod is a cable system from Ikea that I highly recommend. It's cheap, easy to install and can extend really long. A curtain rod long enough to cover these walls would have cost easily $100.

                                                                                    Photo by  Sarah Greenman

So that's our dining room. If you have any more questions leave 'em in the comments!