A New-Old Dining Room

Well, we did it! Like I mentioned last week, we did the big dining room furniture swap over the weekend. The set that we've had for the past 3 years is an old antique set that belongs to Jordan's parents. It came with a table, four chairs, a bench and a hutch.

In case you don't remember, here was our messy, junky dining room just last week with the old set of furniture (and a bunch of other crap we've  accumulated, like the white armoire from our guest room).

Apparently Jackson feels the need to sneak into every picture.

In case you were wondering, I reupholstered the chairs myself a few months back. 

See the tutorial here.

About two weeks ago Jordan's parents asked us if we'd be interested in taking the table and chair set that belonged to Jordan when he was living in the apartment at their house. I had actually completely forgotten about that table and chair set until they mentioned it the other day. We thought about it for a few days and agreed that we both would like to take the set and use it in the dining room in place of the old set we planned to replace anyway.

We scheduled the big swap for Sunday. We went to brunch with my family at my grandparents' house (a Sunday tradition we've been doing as long as I can remember) and left the little bug with my dad so we could run the errands. After three trips back and forth between our house, Jordan's parent's house and Goodwill, we finally have the 'new' furniture set.

How gorgeous does it look in the room? The room looks like a completely different dining room. Jordan and I can't decide if we love it because it looks great or just because it's something fresh in the room. Probably both. Either way we are so happy with the swap.

Note that one of the chairs is missing on the right. When Jordan's dad was getting the set ready to bring to our house he noticed that one of the chair legs was broken. He is going to try to get a replacement chair. Although I'm actually considering purchasing two chairs to put on the ends of the table. Maybe something like this Harry upholstered chair from Ikea:

I'm not too crazy about the finish of the legs. They would need to be stained darker to match the rest of the furniture.

Which, by the way, looks great with our floors. The original furniture set clashed slightly because of the contrast in wood finishes.

Here are a few other views of the dining room how it looks today.

Hi Lyla.

Except for the corner with the highchair, swing, car seat and dog food, we de-junked this room and completely cleared out anything that didn't need to be in the room. It looks so much bigger, cleaner and more formal. 

I'm in love.

Since we removed the hutch I now use the Ikea Lack shelf on the wall to hold our glassware that isn't being stored on the bar cart.

I made these LOVE letters using my faux zinc letter technique.

I found these great vintage glasses in my grandparents' basement a few years ago.

I picked up these treasures on the table during a trip to Anthropologie last week.

They will serve as my inspiration for the rest of the room. The glass candlesticks were a gift from my aunt last Christmas. And boy are they heavy! The white plates were $3.99 Marshalls gems that were temporarily being used outside as planter bases.

Large latte bowls

Mini latte bowls

Fleur-De-Lys Juice Glasses

Next up for the dining room is finding a rug for under the table. I also need to find a piece of furniture to use as a side table under the shelf. I'm thinking an old refinished dresser would make the perfect height while providing enough storage to hold our china, etc. For the rug, I'm thinking of getting a bright color like a purple or green, but knowing my indecisiveness and how often I change my mind, I might just settle on something neutral. Finally, I need to figure out what to do in the corner where the hutch was. There is a ton of wall space just begging me to add some DIY wall art.

For now I'm just going to enjoy our 'new' old set. 

I may eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in there now!