Dining Room Before and After

The dining room is finished and just in time for Thanksgiving.

Here is the room before we bought the house.

The brass chandelier,The 70's hutch,
The scenic wallpaper.
After:

The wallpaper, brass, and paneled hutch are long gone.

My mother in law gave us this great old mirror (Thanks Pam!) I painted it to match the buffet table that we had.

For a window treatment I simply hung two long white tablecloths from ring clips.

I've loved seeing the drop cloth drapes done on other blogs but really wanted something in white. Two $10 tablecloths worked perfectly! No sewing. Simply fold at the top and attach to the rings.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we are so thankful to finally have this room finished and we are especially thankful for our family who will be coming to spend Thanksgiving day here with us.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Dining Room Hutch Project

The dining room is nearly finished. Why do all the little things at the end of a project seem to take so darn long?
I didn't want to wait to share my favorite part of the room. The built in hutch.
Here is the built in hutch that was in the nook when we bought the house. That brown paneling in the back tells me that this was not original to the house. Likely built in the 70's.
We took it out, but knew something needed to go back into that little nook.

I thought maybe we could make a buffet out of one of the upper cabinets that we had saved from our kitchen remodel. We had one that was a perfect fit for the space.

Then I remembered an old shelf that had been left behind in a bedroom when we bought the house. It was covered in sports team stickers but it too was a perfect fit for the space!

Adrian was skeptical of my plan. He started to come around once everything was sitting in place. He built a top for the cabinet and added trim where it was needed. We were able to use scraps of wood left from other projects so this project cost nearly nothing! Gotta love that!
I primed and painted for 3 days and now we have a built in hutch!

With lots of storage for all of those glasses that we never ever use.

I've included this project at funky junk interiors, Saturday Nite Special party!

Thankful Tree

It turns out that I still haven't found anywhere to store those trees from Halloween yet. But that's okay! Roeshel, from The DIY Show Off, gave me a great idea when she left me a comment on that post. Cover those polka dots up with some burlap and use them for Christmas decorating! Perfect! I can put off trying to store them for another 6 weeks!
But since Thanksgiving comes first I came up with a fun idea for our family to share all that we are thankful for.

I brought one of the trees inside and covered those polka dots with some linen.


I cut out leaf shapes from card stock in autumn colors. Whenever one of us thinks of something that we are thankful for , we write it on the leaf, punch a hole and tie it onto the tree with some twine.


I hope that by the time Thanksgiving is here the tree will be covered in leaves!

After all we have so much to be thankful for. Especially cookies.

Dining Room Chandelier: Before and After

We are still moving along in the dining room. We have replaced that lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling with a chandelier. The chandelier was hanging in the dining room when we bought the house. It was old,dusty, and brass. So we updated it a bit.
Before:

After:

The 86 crystals got to soak in warm soapy water while the fixture got cleaned off and sprayed with some oil rubbed bronze paint. It was like the chandelier went to the spa.
I love how easy it is to update fixtures with spray paint!
This weekend we will finish up the crown molding and built in buffet. Then we will be able to cross another room off of our renovation list!

Max

Max turned 3 yesterday. We celebrated with a simple party in the afternoon. Lots of family and cake!

And a little bit of decorating too!

Max is everything a 3 year old little boy should be. Mischievous and sweet. Full of hugs and kisses and incredibly impatient (like me). His blond hair and blue eyes make me smile.

He loves trucks, dirt, snacks, finger paint and macaroni and cheese (known around here as, "cheesy nunus"). He doesn't love being stuck indoors, tomato sauce (at least for this week), sitting still, or sleep.

Just one more Halloween project!

Only 3 days left and I'm wrapping up one last project!

I love this picture from Pottery Barn that I've been seeing everywhere. I love how bright and inviting it is. If a porch in my neighborhood looked that nice on Halloween I would be dragging my boys to that house to trick and treat just to get a glimpse at how the house looks on the inside! As for the door, as terrific as it is, I can't imagine being able to pull off having a bright orange door the other 364 days of the year.
It was the inspiration for my pillows. I also love those trees in the planters.

I decided to try and make my own.
I ended up finding these orange plastic trash cans for only .59 each!

Stuck a few of these on.

Well more than just a few. You can never have to many polka dots!

Then spray painted it all black and pulled off all the stickers to get orange polka dots.

Brought in the same crew that helped me paint my sewing room, to help mix up some quick drying concrete.
Since I was out of cookies, they accepted a piece of gum for payment this time.

Stuck a few birch branches into the wet mix and let it dry overnight.

On Saturday I will move them out to our front porch. On Sunday I will be trying to figure out where I can store them until next year.

Visit the linky party at She's Crafty for more Halloween and Fall decorating ideas!

Halloween is coming!

Halloween is sneaking up on us quickly. Only a week left! I thought I'd better share a few of the projects I've been working on before its too late.

The bench all dressed up in polka dots and stripes for Halloween.

The scraps from the pillows and banner became a rag garland for the kitchen chandelier.

A cute little something for the laundry room peg rack.


I still have a few Halloween projects in the works for outdoors. I'll be sharing those soon.
The biggest project of all? The front porch!
We are racing to get the front porch steps and railings finished in time for all the trick or treaters. I'm looking forward to sitting on our new porch and handing out candy!