Before & After: The Dining Room(s)

Until we moved to the Yellow Cottage we had never before had a dining room.  And now...we had two (sort of).  The configuration of our kitchen meant there was a small dining room size space that sat at the juncture of the kitchen proper and the dining room.  What would we do with two??

Here we are in one of the first holidays in our new home.  You can see that the walls were cream with some lettered stenciling at the top.  Also, over opposing doorways was a full-length shelf that we (as is our want) immediately filled with books.  The curtains were k-mart specials and the artowork was whatever we had that could hang on nails already in place.  The table and chairs were the DIY set we bought, assembled and polyeuthaned ourselves the year we got married.  Needless to say...everything needed to change.

First, the paint scheme.  We removed the shelves, painted a fresh, but similar, rich cream on the walls, and then the WOW factor came from the antique ruby and white chair rail we added on the lower half.

In a Smith & Noble catalog I fell in love with this floral fabric and ordered a balloon shade.  I have to say my measuring issues did come out a bit here...I should have gone wider and also allowed for a deeper return considering the amount of room the fabric in a balloon shade needs....but the floral is so gorgeous, I still love it. (Notice my painted radiator...I had to make it fade into the wall....but someday I've promised my hubby to get it sand blasted and returned to it's metallic splendor...)

But what...what, what..I wondered should we do about furniture?  I was lost..and then, I saw a pottery barn catalog. (And notice the pictures below also show the added crown molding....our first experience with mitered corners and all I can say is good thing we had extra materials).

Since that time we purchased a pretty area rug from Home Depot and have added some of Kip's incredible original artwork and photography, a mirror over the buffet that I found at Pier One, and two small tables in the corner...(I'll add some of those detail shots AFTER I clean out that room that is currently housing all of my home office storage).

I love how this room turned out.  As I look at it now, it has gathered a little too much clutter, so some editing will be coming to this space in the near future....but otherwise, no radical changes.

A future post will show you are OTHER dining space which went through a stutter step of improvements but is now in pretty good shape.