update: dining room

The night we received keys, I ran through the house with my camera before T$ could lay a single hammer to it. In my haste, I completely forgot the dining room! The previous owners seemed to use it as an office/study space.

This is the only "before" photo I could find. It's back there...A white room behind the white wall.

The first couple decisions we made were to (1) rip up the carpet and (2) tear down half the wall between the dining room and kitchen. After we had done these things, I remembered that the dining room should have its picture taken. 

 Once the carpet and wall were gone, we had hardwood flooring installed to match the kitchen's hardwoods. Fun fact: The hardwood flooring in the kitchen is about the only material (besides the house itself) that we have kept. We simply had them refinished.

 Besides the two big projects, we also replaced the windows (and every other window in the house) and swapped out the lighting fixture. Down the line, the newly hung trim will be painted.

Our first official meal in our dining room was move-in day back in September 2014. Pizza, salads (sans forks because I couldn't find them anywhere...), and Gatorade.

We found our lamp at World Market, the rug at West Elm, and the floating shelves at Crate & Barrel. My sister-in-law even did a little artwork for me- the canvas print of Acts 2:46!

T$ still dreams about owning this table someday, but for now we're content with our hand-me-downs table and chairs.

This room has already seen a lot of love since we moved in 16 months ago: holiday meals with family, showers celebrating life's joyous events, many meals with family and friends, and countless messy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners as a family of four.

Another fun fact: the night I went into labor with Sawyer, we were playing cribbage with our friends around the table and during contractions it helped when they kept talking and we kept playing (pretty sure my team didn't win that round).