Room Reveal: Dining Room

It was pointed out to me by an Instagram friend that I spelled 'grateful' wrong. And now I have to spend another 20 minutes re-doing this chalkboard to get it the way I want it. True Life: It might actually stay this way for a while. 

At the beginning of last year I started doing a house reveal one room at a time..deep cleaning, finishing any and all projects, then posting to the blog after everything was finished. It was kind of my 'reward' for checking things off my list. But you might remember we took on a pretty massive flooring project last year, which is why the three main rooms in the house (which is more like one HUGE room), the living, dining, and kitchen...have not yet had their reveals.

So today our dining room gets its chance to shine. I'm cheating a little because I do have one project left to accomplish in this room (sanding, staining, and sealing the buffet to match the new table) but I'm calling it done enough.

Now for a painful trip down memory lane...

I almost can't even look at these. Lord have mercy, there was a bird feeder on our deck. AND VERTICAL BLINDS.

Our dining room looked like this for two years and I'm almost having a seizure looking at these pictures...no one should let 21-year-olds purchase and decorate houses.

These pictures are all pretty close-up, so it's hard to get a good idea of how BAD the floors were.

I'm looking through all my house pictures on Facebook and finding I did too good of a job 'hiding' our floors whenever I took a picture of something. DARNIT. Long story short...the guy who owned this house two owners before us had a hot tub where our dining room table is. Hence, the random square of tile flooring. The weird fluorescent light that hides above the (then purple) accent wall is there because...that's what you did with a 90's home renovation. FLUORESCENT LIGHTS! And finally, and my personal favorite...we have a fan vent instead of a lighting fixture in the ceiling above where a NORMAL PERSON would have had a dining room table. What a blessing.

Our dining room looked like this for another couple of years...notice the hodge podge of rickety chairs around the table. Nothing has ever matched, some pieces have been found in dumpsters...what I'm saying is...IT WAS TIME FOR THE GORGEOUSNESS I'm about to reveal.

But first, a short Boersma-table-history. The first table we had came from my parents' garage and it was my very first re-finishing project (it's an antique, so it's gone to live with my parents for a while...this time NOT in the garage). The second table we had came from what the Boersma family likes to refer to as, 'The Smoke House.' This was a rental property Josh's parents purchased, and the previous owner was a chain smoker...thus coating everything with a nice, thick nicotine scum. Walls, fixtures...and table included. I cleaned it up and it lived with us 'on loan' until Josh's brother got a house and then it went to be with Nate and Hannah. The third table to make our dining room 'home' came from our acreage. More specifically...the barn. It was covered in dust, bird poop, and many other mysterious dirty-barn substances. I came very close to throwing it in the burn pile, but because it has metal claw feet, it tugged at my heart strings and made the trip back to Ames to be cleaned up and brought inside...where it was covered with a table cloth the majority of the time. ;)

Thank God I had the common sense to paint over that purple...

The ceiling vent issue has not yet been remedied because it would be seriously annoying to fix...electrical is one thing...but the drywalling and texture-matching that would follow...Josh might leave me if I request one more project. So I found these lamps at Lowe's today for $28 each, called it good, and saved my marriage. ;)

Picture this buffet stained the same dark color as the table I'm about to show you...

The wreath is seasonal...I do very little decorating January-March so I can clean every inch of the house and declutter. Also please ignore the ugly grill outside.

It seats six comfortably, but can easily seat 10. It's from the Canadel line at Homemaker's and I got to pick some of the finishes and details, which was really fun. And also why my mother-in-law made the trip with us to be the helpful expert and voice of reason. I was ready to nix the bench and the additional inches to make the table bigger (due to the extra cost) but she encouraged us to just do it or we would probably regret it later. As per usual, she was right. We figured if we're planning to buy one dining room set in our life...we might as well make it count. I also wanted to pick something that would be perfect for our future farmhouse, and felt like this was definitely it.

I should also mention, this is the exact table I've had my eye on for three-and-a-half years. Every time we were at Homemaker's I would go 'visit' it just to make sure it was still the 'one.' It's also the only one Josh and I have ever totally agreed on...so that in and of itself made the decision a fairly easy one.

The best part is, we sit at the TABLE for meals now instead of at the island or in the living room in front of the TV. I feel like we're finally grown-ups...I can only think of one thing in our house that was found on curb! This is progress!

One more thing...HOW GOOD DID MY HUSBAND DO ON THOSE FLOORS YA'LL?! It actually THRILLS me to clean them. No joke. It's so much better than the tile/carpet/linoleum/more linoleum combination we had in this space before. I'll be doing a floor blog sometime soon...the whole thing has taken more than a year (and we're not even finished yet...trim, transitions, etc.) so that's something everyone can look forward to. :)

Our first dinner guests are set to arrive next Wednesday and I am beyond thrilled we finally have a beautiful table to share with our family and friends. It just warms my freaking heart to think about all the Easters and Thanksgivings and Christmases that will be shared around this table...and the play-dough and paint that will be played with...and the rowdy teenagers that will sit and do their homework here. I simply cannot wait for all the memories. :)

MmB