When I was looking for my condo, I really wanted a dining room. My specific request was “a real place to put my table” but what I was hoping for was an actual dining room, not just a good sized corner for the table or an eat-in kitchen.

This was exactly what I wanted. When I first moved in, the dining room had a table & four chairs, an armchair in the corner and two bookcases. It was a little…sparse. It was also really beige. The walls are a perfectly acceptable neutral, but pair that with several wood bookcases, a wood table & chairs, bare wood floors…you get the picture. I wanted curtains to really soften it up, but I didn’t want just one color. I searched for ages for the right patterned fabric, and my mom sewed the curtains for me.

The background is neutral, so it goes well with the walls (and new chairs), but brings in lots of color and movement. They have several shades of blue and green, with a little teal and yellow mixed in. Plenty of colors to play off of, like the green tablecloth I picked up on clearance at Target.

I got a china cabinet hand me down later, and then got my big break on an old original buffet living in the basement. Lesley and I decided to paint it a dark blue to tie in to the navy in the curtains (which was a little trial and error–oops).

I finally hung my birthday artwork and I got a matching frame to hang some new art (a photo my sister took on a hike in Tahoe). Along with the old china cabinet, these two provide tons of storage! This is also the room where I craft, and I have a lot of supplies that live in there. Adding all that storage from the buffet gave me a lot more space to store my supplies–and keeping them convenient makes it easier to use them. Its definitely still a work in progress, but I’m refining how and where I store things and I’ll get there eventually.

The Birthday artwork is definitely the focal point in the room–I love all of the color it brings in. My best friend has requested I make him one as well, and that seems like a fun wedding project (he just got engaged).

I just added the two new upholstered chairs–I was going back and forth on whether to get neutral or something fun/colorful/printed and how much to spend (high quality that I’ll be able to use in the future? Something cheaper that can be a fun accent for now?). I’ve been playing princess and the pea with chairs for months now, and haven’t found anything I totally loved–and $300 for a chair is a little ridiculous. When we went to Ikea on our post-Christmas shopping trip I sat on these–and they’re good! They’re less than $100 each, so two of these came right out of my Christmas money and the neutral cover ties in to the background on the curtains. The finish on the legs is even a pretty decent match to my table.

How many types of chairs do you have around your dining room table?