The Dining Room is Starting To Look Like A Dining Room! ...Sort Of...

If you follow me on Pinterest no doubt you've seen this board full of inspiring pics for my living room and dining room:



I've been pinning living room and dining room ideas to the same board because the spaces open into one another in my house, so it all has to look right together. Here's a picture of the spaces from when we first moved in. Sorry for the giant wall obstruction, that's the way the house is built and I can't exactly move it.



Behind that giant icky colored wall is the dining room... or rather, was the dining room. I'm pulling a John and Sherry and putting the dining room in the old living room (so the dining room will now go in front of the fireplace). The old dining room will become a casual living room/gathering area. We don't need a formal living room, but we do want to have room for the big table that we have (so we can accommodate lots of people for dinners) so the switch makes sense for us.

I decided early on that I wanted white chairs to go with my dark table, and an indoor/outdoor rug underneath to stand up to the dogs. I've had the table for a really long time (an $80 find that I couldn't pass up), and a couple weeks ago I finally settled on the chairs and rug. This is the mood board that I created to try to visualize how it would all look together:



Once I placed my online order I just had to wait for everything to arrive... and now here it is!



Okay... I know it takes some imagination with this picture. That awful color on the fireplace is really distracting. As is the clutter that's pushed up against the left side of the room. And the awful blinds on the windows and lack of base molding... All those things will change in time, just focus on the pretty things. Also note the floors. Awesome, right? Infinitely better than the wall-to-wall carpet that was there before.

You can see the floors even better in this pic:



Let's move away from the wide angle shots and onto a few close ups where things look a little better. First, the rug.

rug source: filigree medallion outdoor rug from Frontgate

Since I ordered the rug online and couldn't feel it first, I was a little concerned that an indoor/outdoor rug wouldn't be soft enough, but I LOVE this one. I honestly don't think this feels coarse at all. It's really nice and soft underfoot (and the dogs love to lay down on it). As soon as I rolled the rug out I took off my socks and walked over it barefoot. It was perfect. I ordered a nice rug pad from overstock to go underneath of it and I don't think anyone would ever know it's indoor/outdoor if I didn't tell them.

The chairs also beat my expectations.

chair source: scoop-back chairs from West Elm

I love the contrast of the white chairs against the dark table. Plus, the chairs were really easy to put together. I put all six together by myself (a second set of hands is not required for this assembly job). I think it took me about an hour to get all the chairs put together (and that includes getting the pieces out of the boxes which was more difficult than actually assembling the chairs).

... Oh, and on a semi-related tangent... for those who are interested, remember my saga with the West Elm shower curtain? How I had been waiting for it forever? It also arrived the same day that I got the chairs. It's unhealthy how much I love that shower curtain... I will be working on the bathroom soon!

But back to the dining room, what do you think? Can you see where I'm going with the space?

And most importantly, anyone want to come over and get on a really high ladder to paint my fireplace for me? I'm scared of heights (and ladders) so the idea of doing that myself scares the shiz out of me.





p.s. I'll be linking this up to the YHL pinterest challenge. Make sure you head over there tomorrow to see all the pinterest inspired goodies!