A Dining Room Tour

I am joining the tour of dining rooms at Kelly's Korner.

Our dining room is my favorite room in our house. It has come a loooong way since we purchased our home . . .


But we saw the good bones, even through the very brassy chandelier and mauve window treatment. Coming from an apartment, we did not have a dining room table when we first moved in, so we used the dining room as an office for a while. These were obviously our pre-laptop days! Ha!


Once we decided to make it a real dining room, the first thing to change was the carpet. We replaced it with porcelain tile that looks like slate. We loved the ceiling, and decided to showcase it by adding textured wallpaper that resembled tin tiles. We painted the wallpaper gray, then added a silver glaze on top. Then we trimmed it out with crown moulding. We also painted the room with Ralph Lauren Manor Gray. And we finally had a real dining room! After purchasing a table and buffet, of course! Here it is today . . .






At first glance, you'd probably not realize that this room has a theme. Especially not a West Virginia Mountaineer theme! But it does! The idea came from our P. Buckley Moss print of the most well-known building on campus, Woodburn Hall.


The latin words above the picture are the state motto of West Virginia (Mountaineers are always free.) I had them custom made from Uppercase Living.


On the opposite wall is a photograph of the famous mountaineer statue that stands beside the Mountainlair (student union).


So, there you have it! My favorite room! I love how it has come together, and I love its personality. Another reason it's my favorite room is that it's a great room to decorate for parties!


Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out all the other dining rooms on the tour at Kelly's Korner!

Dining Room: Before & After & After

After posting some before & after shots of lights in my house in my last blog entry, I have been inspired to post some before and after pics from around my house. We bought our house a little over seven years ago in March of 2002. It is our first house, and although sometimes we think we're outgrowing it, I still really like it. We had no children when we moved in, so a three bedroom house had more than enough room! Two boys later, we have finished part of our basement and added a patio in the backyard to gain some more living space. We have also purchased more furniture, since we had never had a living room or dining room before. As I show you different rooms throughout the house, I'll talk about the cosmetic changes we have made.

The first stop in the tour is the dining room, because it is definitely the room that has changed the most. When we moved in, it was about as far from my taste as it could get with a brass chandelier and a mauve window treatment, but it was also an almost blank slate. We didn't have any dining room furniture, nor did we have a budget for it anytime soon after a down payment on a house, so we made it into an office at first. Those were also our pre-laptop days. I don't even think we would use an office now! The walls were the same yellow as the living room: Restoration Hardware "Butter." The longer we lived in the house, the more we wanted a real dining room. We made some HUGE changes once we decided to take the leap. We loved the recessed ceiling and wanted to highlight it, so we used textured, paintable wallpaper that looked like tin tiles. We painted it grey, then added a silver faux treatment on top. We have received so many compliments on the ceiling. It turned out fabulous! Next, we replaced the carpet with tile. It is porcelain that looks like slate. Then of course we added furniture: a table, chairs and a buffet. We also moved our grandfather clock in from the living room. As for decor, we are from West Virginia, and all our pictures in the dining room reflect our heritage. The gold script words above the buffet say "Montani Semper Liberi," which is Latin for "Mountaineers Are Always Free." Without further ado, here is our dining room today!