before and after - dining room

We move in ONE WEEK.  I can't even wrap my brain around that right now.  So, I've been working on making the dining room an actual dining room!  If you remember from posts past, this isn't even as bad as it once looked.  The dining room used to contain a bookcase, a keyboard piano, and Britton's toys.  We didn't move the table into the dining room until I figured that if it was going to be a dining room, it damn well better have a table in it!

And after! The painting was hanging in the office above the desk, but the dining room walls were screaming for color.  You can see above - the dining room is open to the entryway, so there isn't really a stopping point if we wanted to paint the walls.  So, we kept them neutral and used the painting for color.  And we really needed a huge painting since the ceilings are 10 feet tall.

The dining room "china hutch."  It's actually part of an entertainment center we got from Memaw and PawPaw, but we didn't want to invest a lot of money into a china hutch when it's unlikely we would use one in the future.  I cleared off the books and photos and knick knacks, and scoured the internet for inspiration photos.

Here's what I ended up with, and it's balanced and clean.  I couldn't for the life of me find a ceramic pitcher, so I bought a clear glass one at Wal-Mart and a can of Krylon super gloss spray paint - thanks to Melissa and her DIY tutorial (found here) on faux milk glass!  The picture doesn't do it justice.  

Did you know Target is now selling wine corks?  I got them to put in a small hurricane vase, to balance the wine bottles on the left.  I can't decide if it says, "I use Pottery Barn catalogues as decorating magazines" or "I'm a lush."  Could go either way.

On the top shelf is our wedding china with more crystal glasses.