Home Tour: The Dining Room

Since my dining room evolved mainly in my LBB (Life Before Blog), I once again do not have any good before shots, so will use the one I took while touring the home when it was for sale:

Before:



The two biggest changes were the addition of the built in, which matches the cabinetry in our kitchen, and replacing the old carpet with hard wood floors. Other than that, we repainted and decorated. Here's a picture of what it looks like today:

After:




Let's get our bearings straight. This is looking from the formal living room, into the dining room.

Now we're looking from the door to the kitchen. Notice the new built in cabinet which matches our kitchen cabinetry.

This sliding door leads to our patio.

Looking back through the french doors which lead to the formal living room.

The door that leads to the kitchen. Notice the two year old 'stealing' a freezie from the freezer. Didn't think of that problem when we bought a bottom freezer style fridge!

Notice my new plant stand in place (love it!). The art work in the room is a combination of new finds, and old. These are a series of butterfly prints, which I adore. Not expensive, but they make me happy =)

This group of 4 prints are from my grandmother's house. She found them at a garage sale and reframed them. I always loved these pictures in her dining room, and was thrilled to have them handed down to me. I love the English country scenes.

The lighting is one thing I did not change from the previous owner. She made beautiful lamp shades, and I love the bit of sparkle and 'fanciness' that this gives.

My fine china, inherited from my paternal grandmother, is displayed in my built in. There is so much
storage in this built in-I just adore it!!

My dining room set is from Costco. I bought it 8 years ago, and while I really liked it then, my tastes have changed since. It is a bit too oak-y-reddish colour for me now, and the lines of the table are a bit too 'chunky'. However, it was expensive, and a new set is not in the budget. When I bought it, it had ugly (really, really bad!!) fabric on the seats. I did recover the seats in this fabric, which I also used in my living room as accent fabric for cushions. I like my set much much better now. In fact, one day I may just refinish it to get away from the reddish oak colour.

I bought the curtain fabric for 1/2 price at Chintz & Co (another fantabulous store, located in Victoria). I used it for my living room and dining room windows. The previous curtain rods were small brass rods. I really wanted a chunkier rod, and something dark to stand out. I love these, which are from the Debbie Travis collection at Canadian Tire. Cheap & beautiful-Love!


Now, you may think you see wrinkles in my linen table runner, and you would be right. I didn't realize how obvious they were until I took this picture, but what the heck, we're keeping it real right? I took this picture to show the beautiful embroidery pattern. I am still working on my table display, and have been inspired by this post to make a few topiaries.

So there you have it. One of my favorite rooms in the house. I absolutely love having a formal dining room. Although not as popular in newer home design, I will always be a proponent of the formal dining room. Growing up, I have such found memories of wonderful, special meals around the dining table, and I hope to create these special memories for my family also.

Linking to all my favorite parties!

Happy dining!

Edit April 2012: I hate to miss a good party, and Sarah is having a goodie!

Since my new home is seriously lacking in dining room space, I'm busting out this post of my previous dining room and partying with Sarah!