Dining Room Before & After (Old House)

I've been in the new house for about 10 months now, it's finally starting to feel like 'home'.  I firmly say that I love the new house and neighborhood and though there are things I miss about the old house, on the whole I don't miss being there like I did at the beginning.  So those are all great things!

Before I begin blogging too much about the new house I want to wrap up the old house with a few rooms that I never got around to featuring.  It's funny to me how hindsight is always 20/20.  There were always spaces in the old place that never felt done or felt like I needed to redo or tweak them more.  I'm not going to bash our old style too bad because we used our spaces well and thoroughly enjoyed the life we had in them - which if you ask me is the true measure of a home, no matter how 'styled' and well put together they really are.

I feel so silly writing this post!  Clearly it isn't stopping me too much since I'm going through with it. I just feel like I need to 'preserve' it here on the blog for prosperity.  So here we go, let's start with a pretty world class 'before':

Dining room with two tone floral wallpaper and coordinating border

With our first house we inherited rooms full of floral wallpaper.  Sadly this wasn't the worst wallpaper in the whole house, and honestly it wasn't the first room that we planned to pull down (that would have been this one), but on moving day a dear friend of ours saw a seam of loose paper on this wall and riiiiiiiped it down!  And thus, makeover #1 was on the books!

I never hated this room, but it never felt quite right to me either.  Looking back now I see all the reasons why.  We chose and bought the paint in the store, we chose the wrong finish, we decided to stain all of the outlet/light switch covers (still not sure why we did that), the curtain rod and curtains were bought on clearance and were okay...but not a wow.  The table was purchased in the excitement of new house buying before we moved in and so was a little big for the room and we never found chairs that we loved to go with them so we always used these mismatched ones from our wedding (11 years in and they are still in use).  The light we bought from a big box store (our first foray into changing out light fixtures) and in retrospect is not something I'd choose again.  But we got the wallpaper down (WALLPAPER!!!! GRRR) and paint up and spent a fair amount of time updating the space and in the 9 years we lived there it was good enough.

In staging the house for listing we took out the small buffet and replaced our dining table with an oval table.  I'm not sure how but the room felt smaller.  Our house sold fast but we lived with the staged version for about 2 months before moving and after living with less furniture in there it is kind of funny to think that we had all of that in such a small room!  Here is the listing picture to give another look at the space as well as a few more pictures of it without the small buffet and with the round table.

So that's the reveal of a room that we no longer live with and that I was ready to redo :)  In total I lived with the space in a variety of forms (but always with the flat Havana cream-yellow) for 9 years.  I was ready to redo it by then, how long does it take you to feel like your rooms need a refresh?

Halloween Table Setting

I popped over to the blog today thinking I'd post something else but found this sitting in draft with no text.  Go figure!

This is a halloween themed table scape from a few years ago that I did on the fly for fun.  To me it reads a bit like 'Dracula'.  :)  I used a red damask table cloth with black candlesticks.  To add some gore I dripped red wax on top of some white candles.  A sharpie turned some tin cans into ominous vases for seasonal mums.  For the place settings I used my great-great grandparents anniversary china that is black and white transfer wear with lots of wear.  The white pebble napkin rings remind me of teeth/bone in this context.  

All in all I think it works pretty well for Halloween!

I prefer to keep Halloween specific decor to a minimum, though my husband would definitely take it up a notch if I was into it (I'm not).  What does your Halloween decorating look like?

Spring Table Setting

We've finally gotten a brief reprieve from the cold, nasty weather here in the midwest.  The sun was shining through my windows and warming up my spirit!  As much as I told myself to do something more useful I just couldn't resist giving my tabletop a spring makeover.  A few weeks ago I picked up these plates from Target for about $1 each.  I've been waiting until it warms up to do something with them. 

Admittedly this setting has A LOT of color to it, but I just couldn't help myself!  White, yellow, pink, blue, green...the more the better!  Even the hubs found a smile when he walked into the room - hopefully Spring has finally sprung!

This was also the perfect time to bring out my vintage cake stand (a gift from Sarah a few years ago).  YUM.  Hopefully this spring weather stays around to inspire me to do more around the house!

Fall Decor

This year I've gotten really into fall decorating.  Normally I put up some small decorations, but this year I went a little above and beyond the usual decorating - and I have to say that I kind of love it.  Here are a couple of pictures of part of the decor.

Mom said that she felt like she was entering Charlie Brown's pumpkin patch :)

The glider above we picked up over the summer in Topeka.  Below is a small display on the porch right before you walk in the house.

Dining room buffet below...

A not-so-great picture of my fall table settings...

And lastly the kitchen centerpiece...

Happy fall everyone!

May Table

I'm suddenly finding myself with the month off.  Hopefully some inspired posting will commence very soon.  In the meantime here is a tabletop to share!

I whipped this together the other day using a very basic green color palette.  I can't say that I think it's anything spectacular, but I think it is a nice, fairly plain tablesetting for the season.  The day that I put this together it was rainy, so I was inspired to use brown as the accent.  I was also very pleased because I made the table runner!  I purchased the table runner fabric in the form of a smallish tablecloth from a garage sale 2 summers ago.  I'd always liked it but it was far to small to use on any of my tables.  I didn't have a runner to use and I had some no sew tape sitting around so 10 minutes later I had a new table runner.  I have to say I'm very ahppy with it!

I've got a new table top idea forming in my head.  The pieces are coming together but aren't quite there yet!  Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

(I am also very excited because I picked up a bottle of Mrs. Meyers cleaner tonight.  I've been eyeing it for a while and I'm excited to try it out myself.  [WOW - how is it possible that I am this old blogging about cleaning products....]  Since I'm going to be off the entire month of May my main goal is to get this house CLEAN!  Once I try this out I'll let you know what I think!)

Spring Tabletop

I seem to behind everyone else in blogland since I'm just now posting my spring tabletop.  I had this up before Easter and then on Easter threw in the easter eggs for more color.  For those of you out there who don't like a lot of color you may not like this setting!  Thanks to the hubster for taking these pics!

This setting is all about color and pattern and layering, layering, layering!  For a post Easter look all I have to do to keep it current for spring is remove the easter eggs and maybe put the napkin in the glass in their place for an additional layer/level to the tablescape.  I've also since added two medium sized glass hurricanes that have frosted colors on the outside for additional depth.  All of the items featured were things I already owned, so this setting cost me zero dollars!

To see last years place setting (which features the same pink and green plates) click here.

Last Christmas Tabletop post for 2009!

Not only is this the last Christmas tabletop post for 2009 but this will also be the last official post of 2009.  2010 is sure to be a great blogging year, especially since we will be starting the year off with a very exciting announcement first thing on January 1st!

Today's tabletop photos are of the kids table.  This, in my opinion, turned out super cute, and was really thrown together at the last minute!  Out of all of my tabletops I thought this was the most fun.  So without further adu...

This table was the perfect mix of fun and fancy that the kids really enjoyed having their own table (much unlike my sad days at rickety card table)!  As with all of the tabletops featured here the cost for this was incredibly inexpensive since I spent $0.  I especially loved this table because I was able to mix-and-match different seasonal items together.  The plates, green tray, and cups were all items I picked up in the after spring clearance at Target.  The other items were all things picked up in previous years during the Christmas season.  I also really loved the fresher green color mixed with the sparkly chargers - just hte perfect whimsy for a kids table!

I hope you've enjoyed your tour of my holiday table tops.  If you're anything like me this past year left me feeling like this:

Don't forget to tune in first thing tomorrow morning!

Have a safe & Happy New Year!

More holiday tabletops

Don't forget to check the blog on Friday January 1, 2010 for an exciting & important announcement!


Today I'm featuring two of my tabletops that are very similar to each other, which is why they are being posted together, but they are a little different.  Last Sunday our home was host to a small dinner.  The following photos are the dining table settings.

I love how the ornaments from the chandelier look when photographed!

The place settings were pretty bare, but I was exhausted this year!  Looking back I wish they weren't so plain, but considering everything was pulled from what I had in house I don't think they were bad for last minute!

The following two photos are of my dining table the week prior to Christmas.  The settings are pretty similar to the ones above except the tablecloth is red and I used the coffee mugs from a Christmas set I was given to add a little more 'holiday' to the table.

Thanks for looking - don't forget to check back tomorrow for another table top!

Appetizer tray

On Christmas Eve my curly haired husband and I were able to host his family over for a Christmas exchange.  Although we didn't sit down to a meal we wanted to make the extra effort to make the day special.  In that vein I pulled out a gold serving tray, some monogrammed appetizer plates (thanks mom!), ice bucket, candy dish, cheese dish, small dish caddy, and a few juice glasses to create this afternoon snack station.  I'd like to note that outside of the food and drinks purchased the cost for pulling this together was $0.

Don't forget to check back on Friday for the big announcement!

Christmas Wrap Up!

I had high hopes of blogging about holiday table tops pre-holiday, but alas found myself too busy to actually do it. However this week is very exciting in that I will be announcing some big news on Friday here on the blog. In anticipation of such a monument us occasion I've decided to do a rundown of the various tabletops and entertaining enjoyed over the past 2 weeks as we've made our rounds for Christmas.

So to start off this week here is the tabletop enjoyed at my dad's family dinner table; planned & executed by my step-mom.

One of the things that I loved about this setting was that the majority of the things weren't 'Christmas-ey' and that very little was actually purchased for this tablescape to happen.  The gold chargers were a new purchase but the white plates, red bowls, and wine glasses were all in-house items.  Once again this just goes to show that a beautiful table doesn't have to cost a lot!

Thanksgiving Place Settings

Today is double dose day on Junebug!  I've had these pictures from our Thanksgiving table on my camera for a month and just now downloaded them to share.  Sorry for the out of season post, but sometimes late is better than never!

This year we spent Thanksgiving day with my dad's family. My step mom had purchased some really adorable autumn items to dress the table with. At the last minute I found myself putting the table together. Here's how it turned out:

These two pics are of the 'kids' table (Note the paper napkins).  This is just a simple card table that was transformed with a fall tablecloth and some simple accessories.

These two pictures are of the adult table.  The placecard holders are some of my old favorites of Martha's.  My dad and I literally made these Thanksgiving morning in less than half an hour from sticks in our backyard and a glue gun!