In the spirit of honesty, I figure I might as well share some of the unfinished spaces in our home, too. Our house is definitely nowhere even close to being fully decorated. Part of me laments over this fact because I hate explaining that our decor is incomplete when we have guests and I’d love to cross “decorate house” off my mental to-do list; the other part of me enjoys having spaces to work on (and thus dream about) still. I imagine that even when our house is “done,” I’ll want to redo stuff…immediately. Ha! Welcome to being a woman!
Ryan and I lived in a small townhouse for seven years and a rental house for another three, and neither of them had a dining room. I worked for Pottery Barn Kids for a few years during that time in our lives and felt the constant disappointment of falling in love with dining room tables at 40% off retail but having no use for them. ;) Ryan and I have debated over our dining room a lot — what it should feel like and look like. It’s the first thing you see when you walk into our home, so it’s important to us that it feels right.
We began with the Smoak Grain sign on the main wall. We purchased it almost seven years ago (and it’s been waiting its turn in storage all this time!) from a Scott’s Antique Market seller who was going out of business. The white sewing table we’ve had even longer; for $30 as-is, it was a steal (even in my poor early 20s), and it served as our entryway table in our previous houses. Since January I’ve slowly been adding elements to the room (and returning some because of my dear, design-oriented, opinionated husband, haha), and I think we’ve begun to agree on a general direction: VERY neutral, mostly whites and natural tones. The chairs were a risk because I found them two at a time from Homegoods over the course of a few months (never a guarantee!), and the dining room table we finally landed on is from Ballard’s. I have a super cute gray-washed kid’s picnic table that is hanging out in the dining room for now as a makeshift, temporary kids table, and a ton of unhung/unplaced accessories just kind of lingering, waiting for a home. I finally bit the bullet and bought white linen drapes and a chenille/jute rug from Pottery Barn a few months ago, but only because I was able to use my Pottery Barn know-how to score a killer deal.
So what’s the plan for the rest of the space? Well, first we need to cover that big wall with white painted brick. It’s a weekend warrior project that we just haven’t gotten around to. (I think that we’ve been lagging on finishing out the space because of this one incomplete to-do because it’s such a major one.) Then we need to add a sideboard; I’m envisioning something in a natural wood tone, similar to the dough bowl on our table currently, with some glass doors for display and some solid doors for storage. Then it’s really about accessorizing — hanging, placing and pulling stuff from my basement stash. I have a zillion pieces of tarnished silver for parties, and I think it’ll play a big role visually in this room when complete. Key words: when complete. ;)
