My Double Duty Dining Room

Hi all! I hope you had a fantastic weekend! I got to spend some time at home catching up on some much needed housework. My husband Jason and son Coleton ran in a 5K on Saturday, the Trick Or Trot in Bridgeport, WV. My son came in 4th place overall! He was excited about that. And Jason, well…he finished, haha! It was his first ever 5K, and he was only 40 seconds over his goal, so I think he did great! My daughter and her friends went to the Monster Mash at Bridgeport High School on Saturday night! They got ready here and they all looked awesome!

Update 11/01/14: See our dining room now here and here.

Have you been watching the news about the Frankenstorm? Well, it is all that is being discussed around here! Jason is a meteorologist and he is watching it very closely. He says it could possibly be the biggest storm he has ever covered in his career! So stay tuned in to it everybody!!

We made some progress on our kitchen cabinets this weekend. We are refnishing them, and I broke this project down into 3 sections of cabinets to make it feel more do-able. I finished the second section on Friday evening, and the husband rehung and changed the hardware on Saturday. I can finally see the end in sight! After they are finished it will be on to painting the walls in the kitchen and dining room. Which brings me to what I wanted to post about. The dining room/office. That’s right people! We are limited on space in this house, so we had no choice but to combine the two. I worried about this the most when we were moving into this house, but as Tim Gunn would say, we have to ” make it work”!! Actually the spacing of it all turned out OK, it doesn’t feel too cramped in there. I cleaned that room on Saturday, so I decided to go ahead and take some pictures of what it looks like now. We still have LOTS to do in this room, but here are some pictures of what we’ve got going on so far.

Looking in from the living room. The floors are good quality oak hardwoods. There is not much privacy out this window, lots of homes behind us. There are old vertical blinds which we just pull up during the day. Yes, our dog crate is in the dining room, I know I know, not the best place for it. It used to be in our bedroom in our previous house, but there was wall to wall carpet in there. The dog is old, and she frequently pees on the carpet. The house was only 7 years old, and she had the carpet totally ruined. So in the new house, we keep her confined to only the hard floors with baby gates. So this is where her crate ended up. Of course, we remove it if we are having a dinner party or something. On a positive note, it has inspired me to keep the crate much cleaner on the inside! I would like to disguise it in some way. I also am storing some paint cans in here from another project. See our dog Bambi sneaking into the picture?

Looking in from the kitchen

I bought this table about 8 years ago from a local furniture store named Jack’s Furniture Center. Teh black is distressed. The top is showing wear from having three children in the house. I have considered painting it. I would love to buy a new one but that won’t be in the cards for a looong time. Any suggestions with what I might do to update it? The area rug is a cream shag rug that I have owned for years.

On the left is the living room, and on the right is the kitchen. Check out the tackiness of stuff hanging on the regrigerator. The only time it comes down is if we are having company. WE live real people! This is an antique buffet that I bought back in 1992. The mirror came with it and it is old and antiqued. It originally came with a dining table, chairs and a hutch, but I got rid of everything but these two pieces when I moved into my previous home. I love them and plan on keeping them forever. Regretting that I didn’t keep the hutch.

This computer desk was purchased at Ikea when we moved in. It is from the Vika Collection, a table top with two table legs with storage that the top just sits on. The desk lamp is from our previous house, and I think I got it at Walmart or Target. The wire mail storage hanging on the wall is from Marshall’s.

This is a piece of photography I bought from a street vendor on a recent trip to New York City. I think I paid $15 for it. It needs framed. I am not sure whether it will end up hung in this room yet.

This is an old sketch of the Empire National Bank building in downtown Clarksburg, WV, which is where I grew up. My husband’s aunt gave this to us and I love it. It also needs framed and will probably stay in this room.

Look at the cord nightmare under our desk!! EEK! You can’t see it unless you get down at floor level to take a picture like I did! We haven’t bought a desk chair yet so right now we just borrow one from the table. Right now this is where my burlap wreath is hung. The plan is to hang lots of shelving on this wall.

Buffet decoration. The two green candle holders on the left are from TJ Maxx. I think I paid 5.99 each for them. They are a green mercury glass. The cork holder bottle was bought at the Hallmark store. The flower arrangement I made, and am NOT loving it. I am not very good with flower arrangements, but I love the flower pot, and have had it for many years.

The window panels and rod were bought at Bed, Bath and Beyond. The panels were $34.99 a piece and I think the rod was $29.99. The little stool is from Pottery Barn years ago.

This a close up of my antique buffet. What do you think? Should I paint it or something? And if so, what ideas do you have in mind?

This is the chandy. I don’t have a problem with it, except that it is in the middle of the room, and needs moved to be centered over the table. I have considered wrapping it in twine or possibly changing out the globes, or both. What do you think?

Here is a list of what we need to do in this room, and what I am dreaming of doing, if budget permits eventually.

Paint the walls
Relocate the Chandelier
DIY the chandelier???
Paint the buffet???
Paint the table and chairs or even better, replace them??? (replacing them in my dreams)
Add shelving and organization over the computer desk
Replace the area rug (in my dreams)
Stencil at least one wall
Add bamboo blinds
Add art to the walls
Add crown molding (in my dreams)

I would love to read any suggestions anyone might have for what I can do in this room! I want to do a stencil on at least one wall but have not decided on the exact stencil. I am going to paint this room to coordinate with the kitchen, so have been waiting for the cabinets to be finished to pick paint colors. They will be a color to coordinate with the window panels, which I bought just for this room.

I hope you enjoyed a tour of my double duty dining room. Everyone stay safe, warm and dry while you are weathering the storm. My husband went to work at about noon today and is planning on spending the night there keeping everyone updated on the storm, staying on top of it, and doing cut ins.

I will be linking up to the pinterest challenge hosted by www.younghouselove.com on Tuesday. There are also 4 other awesome bloggers hosting the challenge. I welcome you to subscribe to my blog!!!!

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