dining room reveal!

Remember when I wanted to create a dining room in my living room mentioned in this post. Well, although I bought my table, finally got the chairs I wanted, and tried to dress it up for my Valentines Day dinner, it still didn't feel like a dining room to me. 

It was just this table in the corner of the room.

So I added some mirrors...

And still...it did nothing for me. 

I was going CRAZY trying to tie it into the rest of the room. Then one day after looking at decor pictures I noticed that most man made dining areas in living rooms have pendant lighting to make it it's own "area". 

I do have two pod lights directly over the table but I didn't want to hire an electrician to switch out the lighting, so I decided to go with a faux pendant. I literally was dreaming one night and woke up with this cool idea. Bird cages are all the rage now... I swear everywhere I go I always see a million of them.  I wanted to hang a bird cage over my table to define the space a little more. 

While shopping at Michaels, I found this gorgeous medium sized shabby chic bird cage. It fit all my criteria, but when I looked at the price it was $15. I know that's cheap...but did I really, really want to spend $15 on a bird cage? I thought about my student loans (not that $15 would put a dent into them) and I put the bird cage down.  That's when my love saw the 50% off sale sign right next to cage.  I immediately snatched it back and ran into the check out line. This isn't the first time he spots a great deal for me. He must be my shopping angel :)

I was loving the bird cage when I got home, but I didn't have the chain link I wanted to hang it up with. I went into my craft stuff and brought out some tulle. I thought I could measure how long the "chandelier" would hang and then get my chain link another day. 

Since the tulle is so thin, I braided a piece and hung it up. Mike said the braid looked cool and thought I should keep it that way, but I hated it. I was totally buying the chain link. 

But even when I hung my faux chandelier, I was still not digging my space. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was missing COLOR.  The only reason I kept my entire room white was to match the carpet I never ended up with.  

I wanted the color to match my living room so I brought it some green to match the carpet. 

Now I was starting to like it! But that candle was not cutting it so I opted for another one. 

LOVE! It went perfectly with the birdcage, and now I was starting to like the braid I made earlier. Doesn't it look cute with it now? 

But....I still wasn't 100% head over heels in love with the dining room!!!

Sooo one day the angels pointed me into the right direction.  

I was on this blog and saw this particular post that inspired me. So I went to her website to see what she did in full detail and she actually got the idea from this website. This is why I love bloggers....ideas go from page to page to page :)  Soooooo...look what I did...

I cut out the template from this website, traced it on the wall...which took 4.5 hours. Yes, my hands were hurting the next day. But then I also had to paint the lines, which took even longer :(

Yeah, that's me painting my friday away :) 

And now....drum roll please....

AND AFTER!!!

Now I'm absolutely positively head over heels in love with my dining room.

What do you guys think? ;)

xoxo - ginny

***POST UDATE***
Thanks to YHL for featuring my dining room stencil project in their Reader Redesign!!!
For those asking about the paint color, it's Valspar "Garden of Paradise" Signature Interior Satin Base 4.

valentines day 2011

So if you’re wondering if I reached my dining room in a weekend goal…the answer is kinda. On Friday I went to Walmart to grab the chairs I wanted. I spent 45 minutes going up and down the aisles, frantically looking through all the chairs and dining sets but they didn’t have them! After my pouting dance I went home and looked at the paper I printed out on the chairs. Apparently you have to click “Site to Store”….whoops. I’ve never been good at reading the fine print ;)

Though I didn’t get the chairs, I did get my table! When I saw this table I knew it was meant to be. I ran to the table but it felt like I was in slow motion with that love song theme on. It was the perfect size and height. I sat down and started day dreaming about all the wonderful meals I was going to cook eat, all the card games I would play, all the bills I would write on this table. I loved it…I loved it so much I took a picture with it. Yes, people did look at me like I was a weirdo for taking a picture with a table but whatever :) I wrote down the aisle and bin number and left Ikea with a very very heavy round box and a huge smile on my face.

Now, if you’re questioning why I needed a dining room in a weekend it was because I needed it for Valentines Day! Since I’m on this DIY kick I told Mike we should make our Valentines Day gifts. I decided to cook dinner…if you know me you know I DON’T COOK! Nope, never. After millions of years of women cooking I think men should cook. But that’s a whole other post that I don’t want to get into lol. Anyways, I wanted to cook a nice homemade meal and that’s when I realized we wouldn’t have anywhere to eat it, thus the dining room in a weekend.
Like I mentioned before, just putting chairs and a table in an area doesn’t make it a dining room. I set up the table and it just looks so lonely in this empty corner :( But I am decorating in stages…I don’t have a thousand dollars to splurge, so for now it’s just a table and 2 chairs I stole from my moms dining room table. She won’t mind ;) lol But I didn’t want it to look completely bare so I made a table runner with left over material I had.

I used iron hemming tape and just measured out a piece of cloth long enough to make a runner with. It was my first time using hemming tape and it’s so simple! Just iron it on and you’re done! Take a look at the pics of the “decorated dining room table”. I think it looks semi cute so far.

I have a million ideas for those 2 walls that I got from Ikea (of course) to make it homier. Maybe I’ll buy the stuff this weekend? Hopefully *fingers crossed* But besides the walls I also need place settings (I stole those 2 from mom), a vase/candle stick/or something decorative for the table. (This pic looks funny, but I swear everything looked better once the chairs and food were there lol)

As for the dinner I make 2 pork filets one garlic lemon and the other parmesan, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies. I was really proud of myself! It turned out great and I didn’t burn a thing ;) And my honey bunches made me a cartoon video of me and him where he’s singing the Plain White T’s Rhythm of Love song to me. I loved it so much I cried. He’s adorbs :). All in all this was a great Valentines Day!

a dining room in a weekend

I’m finally diving into my dining room project! For the past few months my “dining room” has been either my tv tray table or my coffee table. Welp, I’ve had it! I’m going to make a formal dining area….this weekend!

I have this empty 4.5” x 4.5” corner (ignore that couch-it will be gone soon) just screaming for a dining set.

Now, since I’m working with such a small space I only have sooo many options. I’ve seen a million interior design shows and they all say that if you’re spaciously challenged the best option to go with is a glass round table.

I couldn’t agree more with that, so I’ve been on the search for it. You would think it would be simple but all the tables I’ve found have been either way too big or way tooooo expensive. After going to about a million furniture store sites and giving up all hope I remembered one more store.

The ultimate beautiful/cheap furniture store – IKEA! I don’t know why that wasn’t the first place I checked but whatever….

I found the SALMI table at Ikea and it comes with the beautiful price of $99.99. That is sooooooo in my budget! I think it’s a sign :) Then I started thinking about chairs. I want something “skinny” and something lighter than my coffee/side tables that are dark wood. I didn’t find anything at Ikea that was in my budget so I world wide webbed it over to Walmart. And wouldn’t you know it, I found exactly what I was looking for. Look at these Shell Bentwood Dinette Chairs. It’s only $55.00 for a set of 2 Espresso finished chairs! I was jumping for joy when I saw that price lol.

After I was done picking out my furniture I started looking around Ikea’s website….who doesn’t, right? And I found this other table that has some potential. The MELLTORP table is a white rectangular table that might work in the space also (plus it’s only $59.99!). What do you think? I’m going to Ikea on Saturday so I’ll mull it over until then. I guess I’m going to have to wait to see which one “speaks to me” on Sat.

Will it be this one?

Or this one?

Obviously a table and chairs don’t equal a dining room but I’m decorating in stages. One day this tiny corner will be as gorgeous as these photos….*sigh*