Dining Room Makeover

We've kind of been on a Restoration Hardware bender since our spectacular sofa purchase last Tuesday (but I guess it really all started here, or maybe even here), so I figured I should probably show you a little before and after of the dining room and sitting area (or "lounge" as Alex insists we refer to it) to justify our crazy furniture spending spree.

Here's the dining room before:

We inherited almost all the furniture we started with when we moved in (like this Basset dining table and china hutch and custom turquoise couch and armchair) from Alex's dad. We were so incredibly grateful to have furniture to fill up the house since we moved from an apartment and had very little to our names, but we knew it would just be temporary until we developed our own style (and had the funding to back it up).

We made the room's first improvement just before Ava was born. We re-tiled the fireplace and the areas in front of the French doors and window with this pretty Dark Emperador marble (photos below).

It really used to bother me that every room in the house had a different texture applied to the walls. We figured the easiest way to get flat matte walls in the dining room would be to apply enormous sheets of sheetrock, so that is what these nice gentlemen below were doing when Ava was just a few weeks old.

We painted the finished walls Valspar's Redstone Dakota Sandstone. (It has such a great tone and gets lots of compliments!) Then we painted the mantle white, sanded and re-stained the hardwood floors dark walnut, and added nice thick crown molding and baseboards.

Here's what the room looks like now:

   

We decided a round dining table (we bought this one on Thursday) is the only thing that makes sense in this room. I've always loved the thought of being able to look at everyone equally during dinner conversations. 

And I know what you're thinking -- white upholstery with a toddler is just trouble waiting to happen. But we liked the look of these Martine Upholstered Armchairs (in White Belgian Linen with Weathered Oak legs) so much and they match our sofa so perfectly that we're willing to be extra diligent. (And we have the Scotchgard and the Dirt Devil steamer ready to take action in a flash.)

The coffee table above is another new addition we ordered over the phone and had delivered while we were in Napa over the weekend. It's so enormous we had to move the white sofa back against the wall, but it really ties everything together and fills out that space.

The decor still needs a few finishing touches to make this room complete but that's something we can have fun searching for over time.

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