home sweet home (part 3: the dining room)

I can't really say what I love the most about this house.

I love so much.

While the closets are small, the bedrooms are large. And while the bathrooms are small, the dining room and living room are huge. And really, how many clothes does a person need and how much time should they be spending showering or on or near a toilet? The master bath at our house in San Diego was the same size as one of the children's bedrooms, which were small.

So why waste square footage on bathrooms and closets when you can instead, apply that square footage to livable areas? At least, that's the logic that I believe was in place when this house was constructed 50-years ago and it's the same line of logic that I am trying to embrace, now.

(As I try to optimize the closet space I share with my husband and figure out where to store my toothbrush so it won't fall in to the commode.)

When I was walking through this house for the first time, I was struck by the fairly good size and nice shape of the dining room. The dining room in our San Diego house, was part of the same room as our living room. The only thing that set the dining room apart from the living room, was a chandelier that was suspended from the ceiling. But had that chandelier not been there, you'd never have guessed that the two areas were supposed to be separate spaces.

I never liked that configuration, which is why I moved the dining room in to what was our family room, and combined our family room with our living room.

The problem that I found with that one-big-room dining/living room arrangement, was that the dining area was so small, whenever we'd have a dinner party, people would hit the walls and windows when they were pushing their chairs back from the table. Usually, if someone wanted to stand up, the person sitting on the opposite side of the table would have to pull it towards them so that person who was exiting wouldn't knock pictures clear off the wall.

And if we ever decided to put a leaf in to expand our seating area?!

The table would stretch in to our foyer.

Yes, I know there is world hunger and disease and a lot of other troubling things in this world, but it would bother me IMMENSELY that our dining room table would damn near hang out the front door if we had a dinner party for eight.

In our new house, there is an area, directly off the kitchen that is unequivocally and largely designed to be a stand-alone DINING room. I absolutely love it, because it's the exact kind of dining room I've always dreamed of having, what with beautiful hardwood floors and windows
overlooking the wooded backyard.



(Although the soft rosey pink finch and butterfly wallpaper, with matching soft rosey pink chair rail, baseboards and crown moulding definitely weren't in my dream. Apologies for the poor photo quality. I really must remember to take these "before" photos during the day when there is lots of good, natural light.)



While I don't think it will take us long to get the dining room finished, we have so many other things to tackle first. But in preparation for tackling the dining room - which we hope to have completed in time for Thanksgiving - we're currently debating our color scheme and chandelier replacement. (Maybe this one. Or this funky looking one?)



We definitely want to paint the baseboards, chair rail, crown moulding and all the window trim white. We also definitely want to do some kind of two-tone with color.



Perhaps we'll do a deep red on the upper, with an oatmeal or sand color on the lower which I think would compliment the rug and cherry furniture we have in the room.



(Again, apologies for the horrible photo quality. Note to self: do! not! forget!! must take pictures in DAYLIGHT!)

We're also debating the curtains we want to use. Because I spent a small fortune on these drapes a few years ago, and I love them more than words, they did not convey with our San Diego house. So now, I need to decide whether I want to go with the more gold tone wool, or the forest green velvet.



And which ever drapes I don't use in the dining room, will be brought down to the basement to match whatever we do down there because I'm all about saving money and dang, good quality drapes ain't cheap!

And yes, the window shades that fly up and swivel around the roll while making a loud FLAPPING noise which always makes me jump clear out of my skin, will be removed. To be replaced with who knows what. Possibly plantation shutters or tinfoil?



So what do you think? Am I the only one that's always wanted a rich red dining room? What other paint color would look good with that? Would you stick with an oatmeal, or a creamy off white? Or would you flip the colors and have the light on top, dark on the bottom?

And what about the drapery? Green or gold?

Thoughts? Comments?

I gladly welcome both.