Thursday, January 20, 2011

Sharing our Plans: Dining Room

Remember this picture from last weekend?

We have big plans. We have big plans for the whole house, and what's the fun if I can't share with you beforehand? So, I'm sharing.

This is our dining room. It's a good size, about 12 x 14' I think, a lot bigger than our current dining room. This excites me no end. I love to entertain.

A new dining room table is in the plans. We're planning on going to an auction (!) this weekend, with my father-in-law's F-150. (When you bring an F-150 to an auction, you clearly have furniture purchasing in mind.) We'll see what happens-- we've never been to an auction before. Patrick sagely advised, "It's probably best to not have expectations when you go to an auction." And darnit, he's probably right.

Other plans for this room include:
  • Curtains, in some sort of bright lively print that goes with our palette.
  • A rug, in a bright color with a subtle pattern (tone on tone? stripes?)
  • Sconces. Or maybe I'll just hang pictures over those wires poking out of the walls. I'm not a huge sconce fan-- outside of bedrooms and bathrooms.
  • Removing the ceiling fan. Our house has LOTS of tacky ceiling fans-- black or white blades with gold metal. Most are going to be refinished, because fans are nice to have, but this one is going.
And here's why:

This is the magic of Etsy. (Here's the shop link.) I am so excited about this. Every year I give myself a birthday present. This chandelier was this year's pick. All the pieces in her shop are handmade, and custom, so mine isn't going to look exactly like this. Also, mine is only going to have three pendants. Eeee.

Since we're totally, totally starting from scratch here, and since we have the ability to make the house really personalized, (as opposed to our Binghamton house, where we hesitated with investing too much time or personality into things, knowing we'd be leaving eventually) I'm shooting for One Big Wow per room. One va-voom aspect, a focal point. I think I can rest assured that the dining room is covered.

Do you like it? What are your thoughts on sconces? What would YOU do with that big empty wall? More plans to come!

8 comments:

chasing keegan said...

Wow, love the lights. I can't wait to see what yours looks like. As for the wall light situation. If you really don't like them, that could only be a slight problem.

My one suggestion, is there are so many out there you might be able to find some small ones that could be used as directional lights to add a soft glow to large piece of art work that you could hang there, but at the same time this is the room that you are doing the mural. So I am not sure how that would work.

The other option would be to cover them with plates as they have live wires in them and then just continue the mural over the wall plates.

Another idea, just popped into my head as I was typing, if you are going to have some sort of buffet int he room, similar to the directional lights for the art you could have low light ones that focus on the buffet.

Ok, out of ideas at the moment. Good luck and have lots of fun at the auction.

Kristina Strain said...

Wow, great ideas! This actually isn't the mural room-- that's in the great room-- so your suggestions are perfect. Thanks! Putting plates over the wires is definitely a good idea!

Karen said...

what an amazing light fixture!! i hate sconces...they just seem ... well, about as fake as the ceiling fans. i vote for an enormous painting of some sort taking up much of that wall. no frame, just a large three-d type canvas.

Kristina Strain said...

Karen, I like that idea. It's a big wall, it definitely needs something to scale. Thank you for endorsing my dislike of sconces. Patrick is undecided. :)

Becky said...

I agree with going with low light to highlight art or the buffet! Don't worry or rush. You know that sometimes you have to live in a space before all is figured out. :)

Kristina Strain said...

No rushing involved! We still have to redo the floors (in most of the entire house) before we move, so this is the time for careful contemplation.

Kami said...

I L-O-V-E that chandelier (or whatever it's officially called.)!!! Beautiful.
I think the long wall calls for a lovely sideboard with either a nice large print framed over it, or a collection of your photos in an interesting arrangement. Without sconces.
I don't really like most sconces either. I have a set of candle sconces on the wall at the middle landing of our stair case that I'm "eh" about. I like them better than tacky electric candle sconces. But I don't love them. They fit that space, though. So they'll stay.

Kristina Strain said...

Comments, unite! No one likes the sconces! Everyone is in favor of a sideboard! I love that. We'll see if I find one this weekend.

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