Hey there!
I haven’t stopped by here in a LONG time. Life has been busy and yet also intentionally slower in some ways. I made a consistently conscious decision to not blog for awhile- an undetermined time. For one thing, I have less to blog about – less home and furniture projects. But also I have been working on re-establishing priorities in my life and balance. And it feels good.
I’m going to try to blog more since we’re working on our home again and I’m hoping to have projects/makeovers to share. If you want to see projects in-progress instead of waiting for me to show up here, Instagram is where to find me (and my dogs).
I did want to mention that we closed my shop at BrickCity Emporium a few months ago. It was a fun journey and I certainly learned a lot. It was also a lot of work to do it how I wanted to do it (with true vintage pieces). Again, I have been working on prioritizing and taking care of myself (and my home) and so this was actually a welcome decision and change for us.
Okay…today I wanted to share our new dining room with y’all.
Here’s a before.
Our dining area is large, and especially long. So our old table and rug did not fit the scale of the room. In fact, I think it made the room feel smaller because it didn’t fill the space. Funny how furniture too large and too small can shrink a room up. You need the baby bear option- the just right.
So we sold our old set and my lovely hubby built us a new table.
I fell in love with this one designed by Ana White and he built it. All the heart eyes.
We He built an 8 foot farm table and it cost us less than $150. Yes.
You can see the plans and instructions on Ana White’s site here.
I stained it with a 50:50 mix of Minwax Provincial and Weathered Oak. Then the hubs applied a few coats of wipe-on Polyurethane in Satin to the top.
We intentionally chose boards for the top that have knots and signs of weather. I love it. I kept saying, “I want it to look like it’s been sitting in a barn for 100 years.” Mission: accomplished.
Our next addition were these incredible chairs. I really wanted a clear/Lucite chair so the room would feel visually light. Our previous chairs were bulky and had a taller back, which made the table feel closed off and heavy. I wanted our new beautiful table to be the centerpiece, not blocked off by chairs. I found these on World Market online and fell head over heels. I adore the modern-rustic blend. They are very comfortable, too.
Finally, our new rug (find it here). The size of a rug is so important. Size totally matters. It helps to anchor the room and, again, reinforces the appropriate scale of the furniture. In a dining room you want the chairs to be able to be completely pulled out and have all legs still on the rug. So, you want about 18” more rug than table on all sides. This meant we needed a large rug.
Fortunately for me Rugs USA was having a big sale when I was shopping and I got this pretty (and previously way out of my price range) lady for 75% off! High-fives all around. The colors are just as beautiful in person as online. I love love lurve this rug. It’s not looped, which is perfect for our dogs because they love to lay on it.
So all in all, our dining room has a totally new look. One that is beautiful, colorful, modern, rustic, and to scale. And besides the “to scale” part it best represents my love of things colorful, old, and new and how they all look great together.
What do you think of our new dining room? Have you been mixing genres in your home?