El Comedor

So if you remember, this is what our dining room looked like when we moved in, complete with striped walls, a shiny brass light that hung way too low, and zero furniture!

To fill you in on the layout of this room, the opened door on the left leads to the screened-in porch in the front of the house. This shot is taken from the living room looking into the dining room and the doorway on the right leads to the kitchen. Now, the first project we tackled in here was raising the light fixture. All it took was each of us hitting our head to realize that it had to be raised pronto. This is also the room I painted first because, what can I say, those stripes just didn't do it for me! And it was just too neutral of a color so I decided to be bold and spruce things up! Using a piece of art that Matthew got me for my birthday as inspiration (it's a New Orleans scene because that's like our second home), I went with a navy-ish color and it really made the trim, windows, and french door pop! I'm very pleased with how the color turned out! Here is the picture that I used for inspiration in this room (sorry about the quality of some of these photos, I took them with my phone)

The other art on the walls are jazzy pictures we got in Savannah, GA; the trip that Matthew proposed:) 

Thanks to the sis and bro-in-law for loaning us a table/chairs for the first 2 years we lived here but eventually we replaced it with this amazing antique that belonged to my grandmother's sister. We absolutely love it and it fits the space perfectly! Thanks Mom:)

 

Once we got this table in the house we purchased 4 Verona chairs from World Market, along with the matching buffet. We also have a smaller buffet in this room that was a wedding present from our good friends, Jason & Jenna. 

Now, if you know me, I'm constantly changing out the decor in our house. For now, the centerpiece on our table is a work in progress. Here's the story: recently, Matthew and I carried our kids (Dodger and Waylon, of course) to the beach. I love to bring back treasures from our trips but couldn't really find anything where we went, (Apalachicola/ St. George Island, FL) which I highly recommend especially if you have a four-legged friend. So this is where I thank my sweet husband for putting up with my quirkiness. I convinced him to go with me on an adventure to look for some driftwood. Crazy, I know, but I really wanted a large piece to decorate my spring mantel (which you'll see in the next post) So off we went, and luckily we hit the jackpot at our first stop. I used some of the smaller pieces for my centerpiece and  I've also got wine corks in it with special dates written on them. Example- we drank a bottle one night on this trip so I wrote SB11 on that cork. (Spring Break 2011). I want this to eventually be full of corks so it looks like we need to get to drinkin'. :)

Our light fixture was a shiny brass color when we moved in, so I quickly took that down and spray painted  it a dark pewter. I would eventually like to replace it with something similar to this Addie Pendant from Ballard Designs, http://www.ballarddesigns.com/addie-pendant/lighting/pendant-lights/14196

and hang curtains like these from World Market:

I think using a celadon/ lime color for an accent will lighten the bold blue on the walls. I also want to get a rug but haven't fell in love with one yet.

So over the past few years, our dining room has gone from this:

 to this:

It's amazing how paint and some furniture will instantly transform a room! Stay tuned for more!