The dining room has been once place where minor changes have happened over the past three years. Here's a progression of decor:
Day One: How excited was I to walk into this? I wish I had taken more pictures but I'm glad I remembered to take what I did. Everything was white. The carpet was in the living room and dining room. That chandelier was up that made everything darker. There were no can lights in the living room.
Christmas, 2009: We somehow thought it was a great idea to host a Christmas party less than two months after moving in. I can say it was great motivation for unpacking and we couldn't have done it without our parents. The carpet was still in but walls were painted, dining room fixture was changed (still dark as a cave, no can lights yet in the living room), and apparently I hadn't figured out how to adjust the color saturation on these photos because I can promise you this isn't an accurate read on the color. We also tried stuffing too much furniture in this space that really serves as a pass through as well as dining room.
Spring 2010: My brother helped us take up the carpet and my friend Eric came to help install shoe moulding. Wall color is more accurate, third door is still present (the door on the left that goes to the guest room), and we were still using the leaf on the dining table. This dining room is really fine except to me it isn't coordinated and it is cluttered. But better.
May 2011: Getting much better at accurately representing the color of the walls. Third door is gone, helping traffic flow and adding wall space. Downsized to the round table except when guests are over in the interest of space.
January 2012: Same details as before but this shot shows the IKEA artwork that I set a goal to move past this year. I loved it but it was time for some personality and individuality.
May 2012: I was so excited to order the etsy print of a whimsy San Francisco and create map art, documented here, but the scale of the room and the art was still bothering me. I also felt like the room lacked anchoring colors and was a little too circus-y for even me.
So here's where we are currently. Thanks to my parents' birthday gift to me, the sideboard from the kitchen moved into the dining room. In addition, I made a pinterest-inspired piece of photo art that I feel has a much better weight for that wall to hang above the sideboard.
Having moved the two red tin tiles that were there originally, I got my wheels churning on an idea to balance out the other side, which led me to this idea:
The photo canvases were from our photo shoot from Christmas two years ago with Amy Dale and had been in the den hanging. We also moved the tree paintings (an etsy find, by Erin's Modern Art) from the kitchen to the dining room since the new hutch went in the kitchen. I love them in the dining room because more people see them.
So here's where we stand now. Not perfect but I feel much better about it. New art, less clutter.
I still have to move the green small table out once I unload all of the glasses from the bottom so ignore it. And also ignore the dogs' pig stuffed toy. If a dog isn't photobombing a picture, their toy is.
So just for reference, here's a before and after:
With each detail that we tweak, I feel more and more like the house represents our personality. Are there things that can be done to the dining room still? Absolutely. And that is what is so fun about this.
In making a house feel like home,
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