So we’ve tackled the Kitchen and the Bathroom, now it’s time to move on.  I was pretty sure I was going to end up working on the bedroom or living room next, but I kept waffling over which one to pick.  During a discussion with my mother-in-law I realized that my ideas for both those rooms hadn’t fully gelled yet, but I did have a good idea of what I wanted to do with the dining room.  Problem solved!

So, the dining room.  It’s…. functional.

It also probably wasn’t designed to be the dining room, hence the built-in bookshelves. They’re not functional for a dining room (too narrow for good storage, too tall for a buffet).  This room also has a very unfortunate acoustic tile ceiling.  That will need to go, along with yet another unattractive light fixture.

Now for the plan:

The fugly ceiling tile will get covered up with faux tin panels. This not only add some visual interest to the ceiling, but it also means we won’t have to worry about the state of the ceiling under the existing tiles.

We’ll also switch out yet another questionable light fixture. The bookshelves will also get demo-ed and replaced with free-standing buffets (not necessarily the one shown, but the plan is for something similar). One of them we’re pretty sure is basically free-standing, but the other is definitely more attached and doesn’t have plaster all the way behind it so that will be a joy to patch.  After the bookshelves come out we’ll then have to replace all the baseboard molding since I think it will be near impossible to find a perfect match to patch it with.

For the walls I’m thinking of going dark–the same color I used on the kitchen cabinets.  The room gets a lot of natural light and will also get with trim, white buffets, and white curtains so it should end up dramatic but not overwhelming.  Or I’ll regret it all and repaint immediately.  Sometime you just need to take a chance with bold.

Our existing dining table (a simple black shaker-style) will be staying for now, but I would lovelovelove to replace it with a parsons table some day. I am however hoping to swap out our cheap IKEA chairs with some Eames shell chairs.

I’d like to add a rug in the dining room as well, mostly because it’s the one room where the wood floor isn’t looking so hot so I’d like to draw some attention away from the wood.

The artwork is still up in the air, but I found these prints at IKEA awhile back and really like the colors and abstract-y fruit/foliage pattern.  I have an idea to spruce it up a little bit too… but I need to see how the rest of the room starts coming together first.