My dining room before and dreaming of the after.

I’m always amazed when people start to renovate and make major design and decorating decisions before even moving into a place.  How do they come up with all those brilliant ideas so quickly? I need to live in a place a while to figure out how everything will work and it sometimes takes me while to make any design decisions.  But, when an idea hits, I’m obsessed and things just click and I know what I want.  I like when that happens.  However, the timing isn’t always right. See the burly man and I have a deal. Cash only. So needless to say, it can take a while.

My bm (That’s short for burly man, hmmm maybe I shouldn’t shorten it.) has been pushing me to pick out a paint color for the family room, but I have the idea for the dining room, not the family room. He gets a teensy annoyed when this happens, but he knows to just go with it. I tell him, “Honey, you can’t force the creative flow.”  He might respond with a slight eye roll. I admit, my creative flow does tend to jump from room to room sometimes. I blame it on what I call MIADD aka Motherhood Induced Attention Deficit Disorder.  I do have a few ideas for the family room but I pretty much know exactly what I want in the dining room. It’s really a dining area, but I wish it were a dining room, so that’s what I call it sometimes.

I’m now at the point where I kinda hate the furniture in that dining room now. My taste has changed over the years and I need to have a new vibe going on in there. We’ve had the dining table and buffet for about fifteen years.  I loved that curio when we first bought it and a short three years later, I don’t – at all. The window treatments were kindly left by the previous owner. I like the Bon Appetit sign, but it was sort of an impulse buy. I had recently seen the movie Julie and Julia and had to have that sign. Then I didn’t really have a great place for it when I got it home. Anyway, since about mid-summer I’ve been gathering some ideas.

Here’s what I’m starting with…

And here are some pics I found online that made me say ‘Ooo’ and ‘Aah’ and ‘that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout’…

And then I found this dining room over at Perfectly Imperfect.  It looks pretty perfect to me. This is the vibe I’m going for. Easy, breezy, farmhouse elegance.

Unfortunately I won’t be having the built-ins or the lovely window seat in my dining room, but my living room perhaps? See there’s that MIADD again.

Once I looked at all my inspiration photos at the same time it was clear there was a definite style I was going after. I really like the rustic table, the dark wood tones peppered (peppered? does anyone really say that?) around the room, light colored walls, and white slip-covered chairs to contrast the rustic-ness. I love a collection of interesting things on the walls too.

I’m  lovin’ this dining set from World Market. Check out the legs on that table. I would have some kind of slip-covered end chairs instead though.

The problem is there is no World Market even remotely close to me which means I’d have to order online without actually touching it first. And pay hundreds in shipping costs. I called World Market hoping to find out the manufacturer of the dining set thinking that there may be a small chance that there’s a retailer closer to me who sells it. Well, Sandy over at World Market told me that was “proprietary information” and therefore could not divulge. That sounded like a challenge to me. However, do I want to spend way too much time on the manufacturer mystery? No, I do not.

I’ll take one of these too please and in this exact color. This corner cupboard is from Paula Deen’s furniture line.

Here’s my curio.

Then I saw Miss Mustard Seed’s curio and thought maybe I can love my curio again. I can stain it a darker color and work on filling it up with some lovely white ironstone. Not to mention it would save some bucks. Yes, I like that idea.

I’m also diggin’ this bamboo floor mat. Once again, the talented Miss Mustard Seed seems to think it’s pretty cool too.

So, I don’t know exactly when all this dining room hoopla will start since we’re still finishing up the kitchen (oh gosh I may need medication),  but I expect it may begin after the new year.

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Posted by tru blu sue on November 14, 2011

http://trublusue.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/my-dining-room-before-and-dreaming-of-the-after/