straight up dining room, part two

i’ll take it easy on ya today. less waxing poetic re: my dining room table, more straight home decor photos of the dining room.

talked about my plans for the dining room HERE, revealed the new table HERE

one of the biggest—okay, the BIGGEST eyesore in the old dining room was the unfinished fireplace. remember this?

EEEK! i hear scary stabby movie music every time i look at that. it was terrible looking, and we’d had the tile to finish it sitting in the shed for yeeeaaaars. i was pleasantly surprised to come home to this one day:

tile done. a basic slate from the home depot. it’s another spot where we like the interplay of something a bit more rustic (the tile) with something a bit more refined (the mantel + surround).
the firebox was painted with a high heat spray paint. we don’t light roaring fires in here, just the candles and the occasional wax firelog thingy. the candle holder was given to us as a hand me down. i may spray it black eventually, but for now it works.

the mantle itself is very simple. an open box on top mimics the open frames on the walls.

seriously. every stinkin’ time i look back at that ‘before’ shot i shudder. i can not believe we lived with it like that for so long. ugh. anyway, moving on.

(library picture--Home Goods clearance, $15, hotel sign—Home Goods, $5, schweppes plaque---yeah right i’ve had that since the year one. maybe $4?, motorcycle—Ross, $15, candle holder—Ross, $3)

this area above the mantel has given me hives since the wall frames and mantel were built. it’s not a big space—only 29” high from the bottom of the trim to the mantel, but it’s 65” wide. it needed something with PRESENCE, something worthy of being ABOVE THE MANTEL. but any mirror or picture i tried putting there was just too tall.

i’ve finally managed to cobble together this collection of things, and for now—i like it.

moving on around the room…

there she is. the frame that almost broke the camel’s back. or something like that.

(frames—IKEA ribba, $15 each, prints—IKEA, $12 for all 3)

in the end i decided three frames was fine…mainly because i found this set of three prints at IKEA and fell in love. i do kind of wish there was a fourth…maybe someday when i’m bored i’ll play around with photoshop and come up with a fourth. which city? hmmm….i’m thinking something like mumbai or pisa or something. suggestions?

i love these prints. probably more than any one girl should love three prints. i won’t apologize.

one of  the other major changes we made was moving the buffet from this wall to the window wall.

before:

after:

okay, yeah. that’s not the same buffet. the new one is much narrower, much lower, and in much better condition. and are you ready for this—it was $12. TWELVE. DOLLARS.

this is the photo i sent to jeremy when i found it at the thrift shop on half-off day:

how do you know it’s the right size? he asked.
i measured, i answered.
what do you mean “measured”?

he knows me so well.

i stood next to the window and figured out about how high up on my leg it could come and still be under the sill. don’t worry, it’s perfect. kiss kiss mwah mwah.

why is that a problem? i don’t always have a tape measure with me, but i always have my thighs with me.

probably i need a beard to really pull this off. but enjoy.

this is picture i instagrammed of myself bringing it home:

don’t worry—i took this while stopped. because clearly i’m concerned about safety.

a few coats of satin finish black spray paint, and some silver on the hardware, and there it is.

 

sideboard—thrifted, $12, spray paint—$9

oh—and some greasy kid fingerprints on the front to really make it feel at home.

the top got another collection of things…

(lamps—owned, $3 update for fabric paint on the shades, urn—home goods, $9, oyster—home goods, $12, candle—owned)

the lamps i discussed HERE. they got a cheap and dirty $3 makeover to fit into the new dining room. the blue urn has a chip in the back, so it was super cheap. and the oyster was my big splurge—12 whole dollars i paid for that. i really love that little thing. and the kids love making sure it always has a “pearl” in it. the wire candle holder is the misfit in this grouping—i feel like it needs something green and plantish. but i had this, so it’s a free placeholder for now.

the curtains were an easy DIY project, and they got their own post HERE. they were the first choice for the dining room, and the wall paint color was based off the birds.

curtain fabric + grommets—$49.50 total for the pair

the last major change in the room--

when we initially started this dining room makeover/finishing i was ready to write off this light. i was pretty much over it, and wanted something more modern…maybe rectangular to fit over the new table? the light was a $50 j.c. penny’s outlet purchase right after we bought the house. it hung in our kitchen first, then moved to the dining room when we built our addition. safe to say we got our $50 out of it.

but on a whim i decided to spray it black.

now this is where i tell you what it means to be my friend: it means when you find out your nincompoop of a friend is going to spray paint her ceiling light black—WHILE IT IS STILL HANGING IN THE ROOM, you drive yourself over and take on the unforgiving job of holding a board behind the light to catch most some of the overspray. it means you go home with black feet, because the board didn’t catch some most of the overspray, and then text photos of your blackened nostrils to me later in the evening.

anybody want to be my friend? because that’s all the stuff laura did. <3 you, girl. and i think it was worth it. because painting the base black and spraying the metal shades white took it from this:

to this:

and now i LUUURRRRVVE it. just like that. i’m calling it a free upgrade, since i used spray paint i already had.
the last addition to the light was these little crystals:

a friend made them for me a million years ago—they’re simple beads strung on wire and attached to magnets. there’s 8 of them, you can attach them around the edge of a lampshade for a little added bling. here they perform the function of hiding the little screw end that’s missing a cover (that’s why it was $50 in the first place).

i’m not gonna lie—it wasn’t the easiest job, or my brightest (ha!) idea. but the difference it makes is amazing.

and that’s it. the dining room in toto.

one more time for the people in the back…

BEFORE:

AFTER:

cleaner, lighter, brighter. that’s what my goals were when i started this. i’d say it’s a check, check, check.

my other goal? CHEAP. let’s see how we did:

DINING ROOM COST BREAKDOWN
paint – free (had an HD credit)
table – $30 for misc. supplies (screws, glue, etc.), labor, wood & finishing were freeeee!
chairs – had
pictures + frames – $57
fireplace – free (already had the tile, grout & supplies)
fireplace decor* – $38
buffet + spray paint – $21
buffet decor* – $21
curtains – $49.50
lamp upgrade – $3
chandy upgrade – freeeeee!
---------------------------------------------------
TOTAL: $198.50

*i only included the new items i bought, not the things i already had

looks like another checkmark to me. just squeezed under the $200 mark for my room upgrade.

there you have it. dining room done.

googiemomma out.

straight up dining room

in general i like to consider myself a fairly even-tempered person. there arent’t many things that really get my blood boiling. actually, besides the one i’m about to mention i can think of only one other thing guaranteed to send me into a full on tizzy: that being The Lost TV Remote—which takes me from sleepy and about to climb into bed hey where’s the rem…ARGHGHTHEHTLEIGHE HULK SMASH ALL THE THINGS PHDRLDKFKEQUEKJG!!!! in like .0003 seconds flat.

googiedaddy will attest to the truth of that. moving on, however…#2 on my list of rage inducers.

all due regard to ms. abdul, but the two steps forward, two steps back type of home decorating/renovation gets me all sorts of worked up. (dude…please take a moment to click that link and bask in the epic 80’s-ness of that music video)

bear with me for a moment as i explain: it’s no revelation that home decor and home reno can be all-consuming and a huge time suck. we’ve been working on this house—on a strict budget--since we bought it as a “fixer-upper” ten years ago. sometimes there are things you want to do that require months—or even years—of patience before they are purchased or finished. truth: i’ve made my peace with that. i haven’t had threshholds in my doorways ummm…ever. just breaks from one flooring type to another, wide enough to capture crumbs and detritus galore. i calmly vacuum them out on occasion, secure in the knowledge that eventually (hopefully?) it will be finished. and i’m not even talking about paint colors. we’re notorious amongst friends and family for repainting rooms before they even have trim.

it’s when you finally, FINALLY pull the trigger, invest the money, time, blood, sweat and tears and get it done…and then (no ‘and then!’) it goes wrong. it gets ruined: chipped, scratched, dented, damaged or otherwise broken and ruined.

two steps forward, two steps back.

no matter how small or big—instant rage inducer. which is why when i finally took the leap to buy 3 RIBBA frames from IKEA for our dining room, and brought them home, and then decided four would be better, and so didn’t properly hang them but instead just left them leaning against the wall and then one fell and the glass smashed and the frame broke…

let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.

and i know that in the grand scheme $45 on three frames isn’t like i bought the mona lisa to hang there…but home decorating when you’re raising a family of seven? yeah, even $45 is a lot.
i finally took the leap—committed to the frames, bought them, and then…

thus concludes my dining room post.

….

ok, ha, i lied. in reality this is part one of a big “DINING ROOM REVEAL” post. and all the above was my long-winded and overly dramatic segue way/explanation of just why it took so long for me to do this stinkin’ blog post.

it took me making my peace with the broken glass, hot gluing the frame back together, and just hanging those bad boys on the wall. that moved the frames from the “one step back” column into the “eventually” column: eventually i’ll get to IKEA and buy a new one.

in the meantime, stick a fork in it, because she’s done (ish).

come on in. don’t mind the still-needs-scraping left door. it’s my when-i’m-bored project. (ha)

remember what it used to look like? (blogged here)

quite a change, huh? lighter, brighter, cleaner.

i want to cover so much, but that would be SUPER PICTURE OVERLOAD-ODE-ODE. so today’s post is going to deal with the obvious show-stopper. my table. that way you only get BASIC PICTURE OVERLOAD-ODE-ODE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yes, it is MY table. this table was built for me, secretly, over the course of a week by my husband and children as a belated anniversary present.

some after the fact phone shots of the construction he shared with me. they really did all have a part in it. <3

the wood has a long history. it is solid cherry, from a tree cut down by a landscaper…errr…20+ years ago? he eventually passed the business—and rough cut cherry planks--on to his son, who in turn gave them to jeremy when he moved south about five years ago. they’ve been stored in our shed since, waiting for their destiny.

i’d say their destiny has been fulfilled, dovetail joints and all.

this thing weighs…umm, quite a bit. no veneer—just solid heavy wood. i love the grain of cherry, not so much the traditional reddish finish. so he put a lot of green in the stain to combat the red, and it came out this lovely dark brown.

the design was cobbled together from perusing hundreds and hundreds of “rustic farmhouse table” photos. there is a fine balance between too rustic and too fancy that i wanted to straddle. the final result was heavily influenced by this table from ana white.

it’s big enough to seat ten—two chairs fit on each end. considering that a normal dinner around here fills seven of those spots, i’d say that was a necessity.

bonus: it’s a far cry from the table we had for the first 14 years of our marriage. you served us well, ye ole MDF top.

this is a table for life. it’s a table built to see generations of googies, and grandgoogies, and great-grandgoogies. it’s a table for giant pots of spaghetti and huge turkey dinners and squishing another chair or two or three around to laugh and converse.

you can’t hurt this table. (witness the above shot of elliot distressing the top) and that’s just what we wanted—something that will only get better with age.

of all the things jeremy has built in this house, we both agreed that the dining room table is one of the most symbolic and meaningful. this is no “for looks only” dining room—we eat here every single night as a family. it’s seen hard use in the past few months, and will continue to. sitting as a family around this table—this table that my husband and children built—is something i look forward to doing for a long, long time.

this was the first Family Dinner on the new table, a mere week after it came home.

and that would be eleven pounds of potatoes, mashed, that my father-in-law is contemplating. ELEVEN. #doinitright

now if you’ll excuse me, i have a dance appointment with a cartoon cat (cause opp-O-SITES attract) come back tomorrow for more dining room deets.

a bit of a recommendation, loves.

i’ve spent the last 2 days basically in bed. isn’t that the way it goes? harrison gets a cold, elliot gets the sniffles, guinevere has a cough…mom has a fever off and on and feels like an elephant is sitting on her chest. an elephant with a knife in it’s trunk that it reaches around and stabs through her shoulder blade every time she tries taking a deep breath.

rotten elephant.

i’m 85% certain i’ve got pleurisy—not the first time. and i’m off to the doctor today for confirmation and some sweet, sweet antibiotics.

in the meantime—don’t cry for me, argentina, because being in bed allowed me the fun of catching up on all three episodes of The Great British Sewing Bee.

let’s be honest—i’ve got the latest season of project runway sitting on my dvr, and i haven’t even watched so much as a minute of it. the last few seasons have been on a slippery downhill slope of actual garment making < antics and drama-llamaism. while i‘ll be the first to admit that a bit of interpersonal angst can keep the interest up…it seems they straight up forgot the basic premise of the show. too many contestants to keep track of, too much…ugh.

the great british sewing bee is like a breath of fresh air (one not punctuated by a knife-wielding elephant).

the premise is 8 “home sewers” pulled together and given three challenges over 2 days—generally an alteration, a refashion, and a new garment. they are allowed patterns, they’ve practiced, and they’re happy and smiling and drinking tea and supporting one another in a way you’d never see on PR these days. don’t get me wrong—there are tears. but they are from lost pattern pieces and miscuts, not backstabbing (there’s that elephant again).

however there’s been not a WORD that i’ve noticed of “WHAT THEY WIN” or “OUR FABULOUS SPONSERS” or productplacementproductplacementproductplacement. again—i realize this is the nature of the beast, and should the show begin garnering the kind of popularity i think it will/and deserves i suppose it’s a matter of time. but i’m so over hearing repeated the fabulous prize package through each and every PR episode…

this is sewing like WE do. we use patterns, we alter, we refashion, we are real people. and the fact is i’m simply chuffed to bits over this show and can’t wait for episode four—and i seriously hope they keep it up. (plus i get to brush up on all my british anachronisms)

you can watch it here. grab a spot of tea and join me, won’t you?