Dining Dance

Yesterday, in a flurry of inspiration, I figured out how I can finally make my dining room work. Up until now, the dining room has been fine, but something has just been missing for me.  Now that the china cabinet is in it's new home (and looks amazing in her dining room!), I have to room to play around with the space a bit.  And play I did.

I brought all of my collected chairs up from the basement and started playing around to see which 4 of the 7 would work best in the space.  I think I have come up with the right combination.

I know they're looking a little random right now, but once they are all painted the same color and reupholstered in the same fabric (with seats), I firmly believe that it will make perfect sense.  The 2 upholstered chairs will stay as is so they can ground the table.  Speaking of table..... You may have seen on instagram/facebook I'm on the hunt for a slightly larger, rectangular table that can accommodate 6 chairs.

After playing musical chairs, I started playing musical artwork- hence the lack of something on the wall between the windows.  In digging out some unframed pieces I had also collected, I realized I had one that felt 100% right in the dining room.

It's an unframed print that I had bought at an estate sale this summer for a whopping $5 and has been sitting behind the door in my office since.

Everything really fell into place when I took this print with me to the fabric store.  The planets aligned, the universe was on my side, and I ended up with 2 large pieces from Calico Corner's remnant clearance section ($10 for each yard piece!!) that look spectacular with the print.

I swear, these are the moments that happy dances are made for.  The stripe is going on the chairs, and the floral will probably be the piano bench.  I can't quite get Hubby to jump on my granny floral bandwagon yet.  I can get him to jump on the light pea green chair bandwagon though!

Now I just need to decide between "Golden Delicious" or "Sweet Vibrations."  I'm leaning toward the latter, but I'm going to look at them in different lights throughout the day.

I'll be getting started on painting the chairs today, so hopefully I'll have a room to show you in the coming weeks.

What do you think of my new dining room plan?  Not toooo crazy/over the top I hope!

A Finished Kitchen!

Before I show you the final result of the kitchen, let me remind you where it was a few months ago (which is still a marked improvement from when we moved in)

I designed nothing in here because it felt like a losing battle against poor quality cabinets and finishes that just weren't us.

Until now.

I never thought these words would escape my mouth, but the kitchen is now my favorite room in the house.  (That doesn't mean I'll start cooking though)

I gave the room a fresh coat of paint, we replaced the cabinets and lighting, reused our previous countertops, and added a tile backsplash.  As one of my favorite completing things in the room- the backsplash was extremely cost-effective, coming in at only $150 total!

With just a few simple and relatively low cost accessories, the kitchen finally feels complete.

As a bonus, the added cabinets have now allowed us to hide away the microwave, trash, recycling, and all the other ugly stuff that cluttered up the room before.

Even with the bumps we hit in this project, I'm so happy with the results!

So, tell me, what do you think?  Is it what you were expecting to see?  Better? (I hope)  Any tips on photographing a room that gets bright direct morning sun and bright indirect afternoon sun?

Relaxed Elegance

I've had my nose to the grindstone, and my hands covered in paint this past weekend.  The kitchen backsplash is all ready for me to start tiling tomorrow AM (yay!!!) and my thrift find china cabinet is almost complete with a stellar makeover.  I'm hoping to be able to show you both later this week.  Until then, let's drool over a celeb's space. I stumbled on this picture of Ginnifer Goodwin in her kitchen on Pinterest over the weekend and immediately fell in love.

When I clicked through to the source of the pin, I found the original article from January's Elle magazine (so I'm a little late to the game..) where she gave a tour of her house.  I'm ready to move in with her and be besties- this space is to die for.

First of all, let me gush my girl-crush:  I love her.  I've always been drawn to her for some reason (maybe partially due to how awesomely she rocks the pixie cut), but I really love her presence in this pic.  So cute and sophisticated in her amazing floral dress, but still casual- who needs shoes?!

Getting back to the design.  That kitchen.  It's dark and homey, but still feels bright and has the historic charm we all know I swoon over.  The black windows and black cabinets are a match made in historic bungalow design heaven (I really hope there is such a place.).  I've also been craving a vintage kilim rug for my own kitchen, so seeing her rug here just make me smile.  It completes the space.

I have to say, though, my favorite space shown in the slide show tour, is the living room.  Aside from maybe adding a pop of color in a pillow, this vignette is near flawless in my opinion.  She and the room just ooze a relaxed old hollywood elegance in this pic.

Do yourself a favor and pop over to Elle.com, check out the interview and slideshow.  It won't be a waste of time, I promise!