{Home Tour} Dining Room Update

This space has really whipped itself into shape.  We originally used it as a dining room, then changed it to extended living room space... and now, back to dining room.  And I gotta say - I'm loving it.  The space really makes our home feel cozy and open, all at the same time.

The big change to this space was adding our new table that we helped transform this summer (see post HERE).

We find ourselves wanting to sit at our table often and not just for meals.  The boys even like to play at it and underneath it.  Next summer I will spend time transforming our chairs to match, but until then we added navy chair pads to all but one (Kingston's designated seat gets our old cushions since he spills often).  My plan is to paint them with the same milk paint I used to paint the trim/border of the table.  

Two other big additions to the space are the drum pendant and striped rug I found at Crate & Barrel for a steal of a deal.  The light this space gives is amazing, yet filtered thanks to the floating base design the fixture has.  And don't even get me started on the rug - I swoon every time I see it (the hubs thinks I need help with my stripe addiction... and maybe I do).  It adds just the right splash of color to really warm up the room.

Oh, and our table has two leaves (one is in place currently) - which allows it to extend to approximately eight feet in length.  When we host a big crowd (first will probably be this Christmas), we plan to scoot the table over to the window seat which will help add extra seating.  And we may eventually add a bench to the table too.  

So there you have it... probably one of my favorite rooms in our house.  I forgot to pan to the right to show our hutch as it stands today - maybe that calls for another post in the not-so-distant future.  Now, off to finish preparing dinner... happy Sunday friends!

DIY: Dining Table Re-Hab

The hubs works with one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet... seriously.  We were lucky to have the hubs help him build our crib before Kingston was born and now we are even luckier to have him restore a dining room table to our liking.  Talk about cool.  

Originally, he agreed to build us one from scratch.  Then, a friend of his offered up a solid oak dining room table in exchange for a fire place mantel.  Score on our part - with the table to use, it will be more solid than if he had built one from his own wood.

But... it was oak.  And of course, it didn't really jive with what I wanted our "forever" dining room table to look like.

So, we dissected my inspiration photo to find what it was that I really liked in a table (i.e. plank-style table top, border around the table top, and some "beefier" legs) and he got to work.

After just one day, I couldn't believe how much he had already changed the look of the table.  Pretty amazing, friends.  By using one of his many workshop tools, he was able to create a plank-style look on the table top, he built some pretty beefy looking legs (pretty much exactly what I had been thinking), and added a border to match.  Beautiful.

The best part about this table?  It comes with two leaves and expands from about five feet to eight feet... which provides for seating of up to eight (maybe even ten), easily.  Bring on Christmas!

This isn't a finished photo of it... and I think it was after only one layer of stain (we applied three), but just an idea of what it will look like.  The table top is stained with a gel stain in Java and the border and legs will be painted with a milk paint in Millstone.

Originally I thought I would add a little wear-and-tear to the table to make it have that vintage or antique style/look, but I've decided against it.

We are going to re-use our current dining room chairs, so I am working on re-painting them in the Millstone too.

Oh, and we may have a new Chandelier and rug in the works... hoping to share soon!