Which table would you choose?

I am working with a long distance client. I helped them with their house when they lived near Chicago and again when they moved to the East Coast. Now they are living in a new home (a gorgeous home, may I say?) in Kentucky and we have a clean slate. The dining room is the first room to be tackled and they were considering the Salvaged Wood Trestle Table from Restoration Hardware.

 Salvaged Wood Trestle Table | Restoration Hardware

But there was hesitation. They were torn between this new look for them or what they have always loved - a dark, more refined looking dining table. To help them, I put together two boards bringing in similar elements that they are leaning towards - a little industrial, a little modern mixed in with their very traditional looking architecture - one with the table from Restoration Hardware and another with a dark table. 

Option 1:

Option 2:

They liked them both. More confusion. And so I asked a question, "which look do you see continuing throughout the entire house?" That seemed to help and I think the dark table is going to win. I found two that would work in the large dining room; one more understated - a nice backdrop for the rest of the furnishings, and another - an exclamation point. 

Celebration Dining Table | Drexel Heritage

Claudio Dining Table | Noir Furniture

I would pick the Claudio dining table - what a statement piece! 

And it is wedding time again ... I just purchased this table on Craiglist - it will be the bride and groom's sweetheart table.

I love all the detail on the front ... and it will look perfect with the settee.

This bride is one fun girl and she has been collecting bottles and candle holders to use for her wedding for months. 

The bottles will be used for the centerpieces. She brought them all over on Sunday and we played around with them a bit to get a feel for what the tables will look like:

This is going to be another gorgeous wedding. Can you tell I am smiling?

An updated living room and dining room

I have been working on a beautiful home for the last couple of months. The project started as a simple upholstery project. The plan was to re-upholster a sofa, 2 dining chairs, a couple of ottomans, cornice boxes and replace a tired side chair and coffee table. You know as much as I do, that these kind of projects have a tendency to grow. Pillows were added. New lamps were purchased. Carpet was replaced and wood floors were put in instead. Furniture that never was planned on being replaced was. 

"After"

What I love about this project is that although many things were changed, the essence of the house did not. The client has a definite point of view; she likes things simple and uncluttered with a simple palette of primarily black and white. We added a few pops of color through pillows and artwork and it changed everything but it is still very much "her".

Like any good reveal, it is important to see where we started ... so here are a few "before" photos: 

"Before"

"Before"

"Before"

The chairs in this room were moved to the room next to it and the sofa in that room moved in here. The coffee table was replaced, new upholstery fabrics were selected, pillows were made and new lamps were purchased. The most dramatic change was bringing in the new hardwood floors. You can read more about the floors here. The best part is they are a little more dog friendly than the wall to wall carpet was. 

After all the new purchases were installed, my client and I spent a couple of hours at HomeGoods to select a few new accessories. 

The result:

The gold tray was from Target (don't you love that?) and the boxes belonged to the client's mother.

There are two living rooms in this house - and the one with the fireplace didn't need much. We added new pillows to bring in a little color and contrast and I had a new shade made for the floor lamp. 

"Before"

"After"

"After"

The Dining Room:

The original plan in the dining room was to recover the two end chairs. But when all the furniture was removed to put in the new hardwood floors, the client decided she didn't want to keep the large hutch. The room was cramped and it felt cluttered and she didn't really like the hutch anyway. We replaced the hutch with a smaller (although somewhat deeper and wider) sideboard. The chandelier was also replaced and a few accessories added. The result is a more spacious, open dining room that is much more updated.

"Before"

"After"

  

 Come back tomorrow ... I will be sharing the family room makeover. 

Seller's Remorse and the Ugly Duckling or ... A Storage Solution for a Working Dining Room

At the beginning of summer I switched a few things around in my living room. It took a while to get things right and part of what was hindering me was a very large corner armoire. I blogged about it here and shared how I finally decided that the armoire just had to go.

THE ROOM BEFORE

The armoire was  purchased when we first remodeled our house twelve years ago as a place to put our TV in. You know, the kind of TV that is like a huge box. As it turned out, we never did put the TV there and it ended up being a storage closet for all my extra "stuff". It kept me from doing a lot of things I wanted to do to the room because of the color (a distressed green) and because of its size. I worked around it for years!

The day that I finally decided that maybe I should just get rid of it and stop decorating around it was monumental. Taking it out was like a breath of fresh air but a little scary because I was getting rid of a very large storage area (not to mention a daunting task emptying it of all the things I had stuffed in there). 

THE ROOM AFTER

It felt great taking it out ... but then the problem arose ... what to do with it. It needed a new home but finding someone with a large empty corner was not as easy as I thought. I finally found a home for it (thanks sis!), and although it is not a "perfect" fit ... it works.

But first it needed a new coat of paint.

Clients always want to know what the name of a paint color is ... I think it is kind of silly. I mean, what if you love the color but just hate the name ... so sometimes I think that just using numbers makes more sense ... but then there are other times when I think I would love to have the job naming all the colors - I mean seriously, how much fun would that be? 

So when I was choosing the colors for the "ugly duckling" armoire, I think I may have been a little swayed by the names ...

The outside is Tropical Waterfall and the inside is Quack Quack (both Dunn Edwards). Are you smiling? The inside will not really show unless it is opened but I thought it would be fun to have a little surprise inside. Quack Quack!

A fresh coat of paint has turned this "ugly duckling" into something beautiful! And it looks so nice with  it's new colors that it makes me wonder if maybe I should have kept it ...

Actually, I am just kidding - I love it so much better in its new home and thrilled that it will be put to good use. It will serve as a much needed storage "closet" in a dining room that doubles as a workspace for scrapbooking and other crafty projects. My sister can now spread out on her large dining room table and when she needs to clean up, everything can be stashed out of sight.  (Note: The photograph shows the walls much greener than in reality - it really does look nice in person). 

TRANETORP DINING TABLE - IKEA

The dining room table / workspace is actually two of these pushed together. They make a large square and they also have leaves that can extend the tables even larger. 

It was an inexpensive solution for a dining room that also doubles as a workspace. 

Hope your week is going well... I'm off to look for a new chandelier for this room - one that is lighter and brighter!

Beaded chandelier as an exclamation point

Remember the project where I moved my client's dining room into her living room? You can read about it here and here and here. The rooms were finished for the most part, but we have been waiting on a couple of things (a rug that is still not here) and a chandelier.

The original mood boards

I thought you might like to see how the sitting room looks with the new chandelier in place ...

I love the impact it makes ... like adding an exclamation point!

Remember, this was where the dining room used to be and it had a chandelier hanging over the table. Rather than patching the ceiling where the chandelier was, I thought it would be nice to put something fun in its place. 

New ceiling fixture - from Ro sham Beaux

We decided not to place a chandelier over the dining table in its new location for a couple of reasons - one, was that the table is off center from the current recessed lighting and it would be a "project in itself" to move them all in order to accommodate a chandelier. And most importantly, the room has enough going on visually with the art wall and a chandelier would have overwhelmed the space. Putting the chandelier in the sitting area balances both rooms and brings in a nice pop of turquoise. I like that it carries your eye over to the sitting area. 

The area rug will cozy up the sitting area ... but if it never comes I am not sure it would be the end of the world!

Future area rug