The Dining Room

I took these photos right before Mr. O was born and things have changed a bit, but the Dining Room is my favorite room in the house! In this room we eat, create, school, play music, make messes . . . The photos are dreadful and all had very reddish tints which I tried to fix, but really should have just re-taken them! Our Dining Room is the design jumping off point for the rest of the downstairs which has yet to be reconciled. Enjoy the tour!


This is looking into the dining room from our living room. Our table was rescued from a dumpster! We re-painted it several times (it had a butcher block top) and settled on black. I really like it because it is so sturdy and indestructible!
The chairs we found after quite a search--they are rental/ballroom chairs and we bought them second-hand from a rental company. I love the style and small scale--we can fit more folks around the table! We ended up buying ten chairs for when we have crowds and in case one breaks. The extras are hanging in our storage room. Eventually I'd like to re-cover the cushions. Our piano came from a junk store located between Lookout Mountain and Mentone. We somehow fit it into our LandCruiser! It was maple-ish until we painted it. The "art pieces" are vintage record albums that we switch out occasionally.


This corner borders the living room and kitchen. I am not crazy about the cabinet as it is, but is super useful for storage. Tuan built this out of some louvered doors my dad had leftover from a job and some scrap plywood. Art stuff, sewing supplies, gift wrap and I know not what fill this cabinet. This corner is the only part of the room I am not sure about. I think I'd rather have a desk or something--any suggestions?


My favorite wall! Our other house had so much white in it that we were just craving color! This is a bit more florescent than intended but I LOVE the cheeriness of this wall. We do have a solemn rule that you DO NOT TURN ON THE FLORESCENT light fixture unless a dire need exists because this green does not do well under such scrutiny! The lovely pink (and it is pink) buffett/sideboard was formerly our changing table. Tuan built it (recognize a trend, here?). I keep our homeschooling stuff in here and underneath are three bins (theoretically one for each kid's toys, but that's not always the reality!). My lamps came from Dirt Cheap.


The curtains! We were on a desperate hunt for something affordable to make colorful curtains and ended up in the shower curtain aisle at Target and fell in love with these shower curtains. I lined them and added a white border to the bottom. (Ha! Something I did instead of Tuan) They are hanging on flimsy hardware until Dirt Cheap produces something appropriate.


And last, the inside of the craft cabinet. It's usually more junky than this. Hope you enjoyed our Dining Room tour! I am terrible about photo posting so I hope this makes [Elizabeth] happy!

ps. I hope it is just my monitor, but these photos are ghastly! What better excuse to come by in person!