I emailed my friend Courtney, over at The Golden Boys and Me, and asked her where she finds her cute pillows.  She said she orders them through H&M.  I have never been to H&M and I would never have even thought to shop there online, so I was glad to have the suggestion.  I spotted this Herbs & Spices pillow and knew it would be perfect in my dining room!

I’m loving the charcoal gray!  It looks perfect against the drapery panels.

Don’t you just love the way a small change can just make the room?

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My new dining room hutch arrived two days before Christmas.  I finally have enough room to store my dishes.  My hubby says I have too many different sets of dishes.  I tried to explain that you can never have too many dishes, but he doesn’t seem to agree.  Regardless of his opinion on my dishes, he agreed that a place to store them was good idea!

The wood tone is very similar to my Costco table and chairs that I got a few years ago.  The hutch came from a discount furniture store in Snohomish.  Hey, discount furniture stores are a step up from my normal Craigslist furniture finds!  

Once the big hutch was in place, I had to find a home from the old cabinet that used to be in our dining room.  I love this little cabinet from my hubby’s side of the family.  I have grand plans to restore it, but haven’t gotten around to that yet.  After taking the tree out of the living room, we started rearranging furniture and found a perfect spot for the cabinet. 

The ottoman is now the coffee table, since this room isn’t a “formal” living room anymore.  The boys like to pull up a seat and play some games, eat popcorn, and drink sugary soda. The ottoman encourages play, and a place to kick your feet up.  I’m kind of liking this new arrangement.

The old coffee table is now in the family room, which is a whole other story. (Pictures to come later.)

The cabinet in the living room is the perfect place to store my fancy silver.  (Ok, I really don’t have any fancy silver, but it sure looks pretty in the cabinet!)  I love going to Goodwill and finding silver platters and bowls.  You can usually find them for about $1-$3.  I buy them whenever I find them.  They are the perfect things to keep on hand for taking food to parties.  They look very pretty and they are cheaper than plastic platters from the party store.  

(Wow, when will I learn that I need to use a tripod if I don’t want blurry pictures?)

The top of the cabinet is now home to my pottery collection.  I LOVE this pottery from The Weedpatch, in Country Village.  My sister in law bought a piece for me for Christmas and apparently they are not going to carry it anymore.
 (insert frowny face here)

So, you can see that one thing leads to another in my house.  It all started with a new hutch in the dining room, and ended with three rooms being totally revamped.

Happy rearranging!

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This is my big scary wall.  It’s just outside of my dining room.

It is one of the first areas you see when you enter my house. 

It’s a dark space with nothing exciting to look at.  My first thought was to put an entry table there.

 Problem:  My kids play in the hall all the time.  They do puzzles, rollerblade (that was before we refinished the hardwoods), practice cartwheels, and drive remote control cars.  A table or buffet would take up too much floor space.  My hubby also loves the openness of our hallways and doesn’t really have a desire to fill the floor space with furniture. 

My second thought was to do a built-in piece, recessed into the wall.  I was thinking about a beautiful hutch piece, which would also be a great serving piece for parties.  Problem: $$$$$  It’s pretty scary to think about how much built-ins, recessed walls, and beautiful crown moulding would cost.

Oooh, then there was the 3 piece set from Ballard Designs.  They’re kind of pricey, but not as much as built-ins.  Problem:  Still too much $$$$$ and it would take up too much floor space.

So, here’s my new plan.  I’m so excited about it that I lost sleep planning how it would look and how I would decorate it.

Isn’t this the coolest shelf you’ve ever seen?  It’s made from old, rustic, barnwood.  I think I may need to make a bathroom door while I’m at it.

Now, if only I knew a farmer who might be able to track down some barnwood for me…

Happy Decorating!

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I was almost sad to see it go.

Ok, I’m done being sad. ‘Cause look at this!

We were on vacation in Oregon, when we stopped at Costco for milk and lunch meat (because you can’t beat the price of Costco’s milk or lunch meat). My hubby spotted a dining table and chairs that he said he really liked. I didn’t even look at it.

We came home and he mentioned, again, that I should take a look at the table from Costco. Now, I loved the look of my Pottery Barn/Craigslist dining room, but I didn’t love the feel quite as much. The set was a little rickety and I was always afraid my grandma would sit in the broken chair and it would collapse underneath her. (Not because she’s a heavy woman – she’s only about 95 pounds- but because the chair had been repaired many times.) The next time we went to Costco my hubby showed me the table…. I kind of liked the table. I can’t say this set is truly “me”, since I would probably pick something with rich, warm fabric from Calico Corners. But, this set DID melt my heart a little.

We had a buffet in the living room that I thought would match perfectly, and it did! After a little patience and persistent calling to our local Costcos, we were finally told of a delivery date of furniture shipment to the stores. We were there bright and early, with a borrowed pickup truck. This set was an unbelievable deal! To top it off, I was able to sell my old set for just under $200. Score!

Now, I just need to convince my hubby that we should eat dinner here at least once. He says it’s too nice for us to eat on, so we’ll have to wait for the next family party.

Happy dining!

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When I changed my dining room from fall

to spring,

I needed to change my accessories too. I made a new table runner to add a different feel to the room. I already had a big urn that matched the runner. I also recovered a chair in the dining room with the same fabric.

This was my table at Easter.

The big urn has been crying out for sunflowers, but have you seen how expensive sunflowers are? I had a party at my house and went to the store specifically for sunflowers. I couldn’t do it. It was going to cost $20 for just a few sunflowers that would be dead in a week. I grow sunflowers in my garden, but they won’t be ready until September. I’m not a fan of faux anything… faux stone, faux hawks, faux wall treatments, or faux flowers. I decided to try the faux flowers anyway and I’m kind of pleased with the look.

Fresh sunflowers would be my first choice, but these will do just fine. They’re a sunny addition to my dining room.

Here are a few parties I like to participate in.

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Here’s a glimpse of my dining room last week.

A few of my bloggy friends got me thinking that I really need to lighten up for Spring and Summer. As much as I love my warm and cozy dinging room, it does feel a little dark on an eighty degree day in August. Kim, over at Savvy Southern Style,lightened up her living room. The Thrifty Decor Chick, thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com has been lightening up. Enter the Lowe’s paint drop cloths again…

Remember how much I loved my drop cloth curtain in the laundry room?

Well, here’s the lightening up version of my dining room.

I used the paint drop cloths from Lowes. The first time I saw this idea was on Layla’s blog, theletteredcottage.net. She uses them in her dining room and they look perfect. I love the way they have a natural linen/burlapish feel. I’m so excited about the way they turned out. I’m not loving the tie backs. I’d rather not have tie backs at all, but I like the way the light comes in when the drapes are pulled back.

I have a lot more springifying to do in the dining room, but right now I’m glad I’ve lightened up a bit.

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