Lots of Lemons: Dine and Design

About three years ago we moved into our house, which came complete with formal living and dining rooms. Turns out we're not very formal people, so we didn't have any formal furniture.

We decided to turn the dining room into an office, since it had a door on one side, and an entry on the other just the perfect size to add double doors onto, allowing it to be closed off for privacy. Even though it was farther from the kitchen, the formal living room became our dining room...and sat empty for about a year.

A good family friend was getting a new dining room set, and gave us the old one for free - the best price there is! It's blond wood, with light creamy colored upholstery and wasn't really our style. Before I'd seen it, I had no idea what blond wood was, but it's exactly like it sounds - wood the color of blond hair. Probably not something we'd pick out ourselves, but it was solid wood, high-quality, and came with 4 regular chairs, 2 arm chairs and 2 leaf expansions. And it was free. Free, free, free. Free as a bird. Did I mention that?

I resolved to recovering the chairs with a darker fabric that would really pop against the blond, and that would match our decor better, thus updating the look. I picked up this fabric on sale at Hancock fabric a while back:

It's pretty similar to the fabric we had our couches reupholstered in several years ago (my mom owned our living room set before she married my dad way back in 70s - they've been redone 3 times now and are surprisingly still in excellent shape). The fabric is warm, soft and comfy, and even better, you can wipe it clean with a damp washcloth. Perfect for couches and dining room chairs!

Remember how I said in my lamp redo tutorial I like to tie in one or two elements throughout the house? This reddish orange color follows us around from the living room and kitchen, to the dining room, game room, and our master bath, so that's a plus!

After I bought the solid fabric, I watched too much HGTV and decided that maybe I wanted something fun and funky, but I really can't bring myself to cover the chairs in a crazy pattern that I'll end up hating next year. So, like so many other projects, this one got put on hold.

Fast forward to last fall. Our house was on the market for a few months, but it didn't have any sales action and my husband's transfer was cancelled so we stayed put. While showing the house, we switched the dining room into the actual dining room (instead of where it had been in the living room). Turns out we actually liked the room where it was supposed to be. Apparently it really is easier to serve the dining room if it's by the kitchen. Who knew?

So now that our dining room table has its final resting place, and we've repainted the walls and hung new curtains it's time to get down to business reupholstering and accessorizing.