Dining Room - DONE!

Well, this is a little project that has been months in the making. And to be perfectly honest, it's not completely done. There are always the little things like touching up around the trim, etc. to do, but doggone it, I'm ready for this project to be done! It all started with my little Craigslist treasure find. Remember?

Initially, I wanted to sand and refinish the table and chairs - you know, being the ambitious-type and all. Ha! Or maybe just crazy. Anyway, turns out, this isn't a table that wants to be refinished. See all the sandy sandy above?? Well, turns out, whether you sand for five minutes or oh, five hundred minutes, you can still wipe all the dust off and it looks exactly the same as before you started. EXACTLY.

Which means I had to go to Plan Two. Primer and paint. Being the nerd/groupie girl that I am, I emailed Ms. Little Green Notebook over to the side, and she very sweetly (and may I say extremely promptly?) emailed me back with a few suggestions to make the painting process smoother and easier. One of which being to use flat paint and then poly with a sheen for a smoother finish.
Another little bit of quirkiness: the table came with one leaf, but there was room for another. So, cutie hubbers took the leaf that we had and had some MDF cut at Home Depot and then had it finished up at this little hole-in-the-wall carpenter dude near Lexington today. A little more painty painty, and you wouldn't even know that it didn't come with the table. Beveled edge and all.
Fortunately, I also come with a very handy sissy and bro-in-law! Remember The Battle of the Evil Squirrels of 2009? Well, evidently they didn't get the message to wait until 2009 and started a year early with a hole or two through the siding and drywall into our dining room. It got patched at the time on the outside by our exterminator friends, but since the wallpaper was so busy and you couldn't really see the hole and I am lazy, etc., the interior hole just stayed there until now. But thanks to Super Dave, that hole is GONE!

And Little Ms. Domestic Sissy helped me to make new drapes for the dining room with my awesome fabric. Let me rephrase that: here and there I helped HER to make the drapes. Truly, I wasn't much help since I don't know much about sewing. But as a result, they look great! And, they really pull the room all together...and with the blue on the kitchen walls.

So, see? Here's kind of a view of the finished project. The colors in these pictures are not so true as the real thing. I promise it's a little better than that!

Please note my painted wonder table and some of the reupholstered chairs. And my drop cloth awaiting the drips from the next few coats of poly to my table. And my amazing chandelier find from overstock. And the amazing rug from overstock. And my addiction to bargain shopping.

OK. I'm not that weird with art. Just weird in general, not art weird. Just don't have the last four frames I need. I took a book I got off amazon.com with reprinted Audubon bird prints and chose some of my favorites. Just you wait until you see the flamingo!

You can click on the pictures below if you like to get a better idea of how the prints will look. They have these soft, muted colors, and with the light blue and light green, my thought was to continue the aquatic/nature feel. Not sure I achieved it, but still really like my birdies.

So just let me know when you are stopping by, and I'll whip up a little something for you. Well, either that or slap a paintbrush in your hand and get you going on my next project. And if anyone out there is good at reupholstering, let me know! :)