Dining Room

Antique Store Score!

Posted by Lindsay on Jun 1, 2009 in Decor, Dining Room, Featured Articles, Furniture | 15 comments

My dining room is finally a room that makes me happy. It started out as a tiny little bright nook with an ugly light, and now with a hand-me-down table and chairs, an eBay find, a marked-down pendant lamp, lots of wedding and Christmas gifts, a little paint and a new $50 antique store score (yippee!) it has turned into a lovely little room in our house.

Here is the move-in condition – yuck:

And here is what it looks like today!  We picked up that sideboard at the antique store the other day for $50!  We inherited the table and chairs from my husband’s parents after the table couldn’t withstand being outdoors in the winter here.  They originally purchased it for their deck but the grout started to crack when it froze (yay for us!).  The chairs go with a wood and green vinyl card table that they weren’t using, but we thought they went nicely with the table.

If you’ve been reading recently you know that the pendant light was a Pottery Barn markdown, and I am so happy to get the old light out of there!  The bamboo sliding panels in the background cover our sliding glass door – I found those on eBay!  I despise vertical blinds and didn’t want curtains there so I looked to eBay.  We painted the stripes on the wall back in December and love the look.  The best part is the paints are different finishes so it gives it a wallpaper feel (the green is a semi-gloss and the ivory is a satin – a great trick for painting stripes!).

I also picked some lilacs from my backyard for some fragrance…I love fresh flowers!  Especially free ones from my own yard!

Almost everything else (except the sideboard itself) was a wedding or Christmas gift so this room was made-over for about $200!  And that includes the cheap wine in the wine rack.  It sure was yummy, though!  We filled it with our wedding china, table linens, serving platters and specialty glassware.  I don’t have a lot of white in my house, but I have an abundance of white dishes.  It’s a great base for entertaining, plus it doesn’t compete with the colors of the food!  And it never goes out of style!

And last night my sister-in-law told me she saw a big truck being unloaded into our local antique store…I guess I have to make another trip this week to see what else I can score!

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Hallelujah! New dining room pendant!

Posted by Lindsay on Apr 30, 2009 in Decor, Design, Dining Room, DIY, Lighting | 7 comments

I’ve had my eye on this pendant lamp from Pottery Barn for months!  I actually mentioned it in an earlier post, proclaiming my love for “faux bois” and tree prints.  It was already on sale, so I kept checking and checking on it to make sure that it didn’t sell out.  As you might know, we went on vacation for a week earlier this month, and when I got back I decided to check on my pendant to make sure it wasn’t sold out and to my surprise it had DROPPED $30 MORE IN PRICE!  Woo-hoo!  So I bit the bullet and a few clicks later it was mine…I mean ours. 

Here it is in it’s Pottery Barn loveliness.  I love the lamp with the black, white, neutral, cool and warm tones.  I can’t make a decision on my favorite design styles, so I like to mix it up!

Here is the “before” shot (that is not the actual light fixture, that is a paper lantern from our wedding that Glenn cut to fit over the hideous “wagon wheel” fixture with broken glass – bleh!):

And here is my wonderfully handy husband installing it for me!  Wasn’t the paper lantern an improvement??  I’ve been dying to get that thing out of the house since we bought it last July!

To switch out a light, first of all – turn the power off!  And all you do is re-connect wires.  If you have an extra set of hands, connect them as you disconnect them so that you know you’re getting the correct wires.

Here is Glenn connecting the ground wire (the copper wire, screwed down with the green screw).  That is very important!

And that’s it!  Now he’s screwing the housing back onto the mounting plate.

It works!  Yay!

As a general interior design rule, a pendant hanging over a dining room table should hang at least 30″ above the top of the table.  Our pendant came with a few different sized bases and we chose the one that hung the bottom of the shade 32″ from the top of our table – this thing is pretty massive!

Ta-da!!  I’m so glad to have that old one gone…I did a happy dance as I took it to the trash!

I even like it when it’s off. 

See, I told you it was massive!  Harper looks teeny underneath it!

Aawww…he installs my pendant and then cooks me dinner!  Thanks, honey!!

Now I can’t wait to finish the dining room!  On my list:  1). A slipcover for the loveseat that is at the table.  We were going to sell that loveseat, but had no luck.  After I was sick of it in Harper’s room I had Glenn help me move it to the dining room and I love it there!  It’s just ugly!  2).  Some kind of valance to cover the top of the sliding panel system that covers the sliding glass door.  3).  Some white shelving to replace the poster and candle sconces that are above the loveseat.  The black is too harsh in the kitchen – it needs to go back to the living room by the pool table.  I think I’ll actually try to keep a corner of my house light and airy instead of dark and dramatic!  4).  After I get my shelves, I’ll need some knick-knacks and candles, photos, etc. for the shelves.  Like the lovely Pottery Barn photo.  Ahhhhhhh….

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