Mix and Chic New Dining Room Inspiration via Chairish

Since we have made the decision to downsize to a smaller home, I have realized that I am going to have to let go of my large dining room furnishings. I have a huge china hutch that is over 10 feet long and a dining table that seats up to 12. This is not going to work in the new house, so I've been window shopping over at Chairish.com. Have you discovered this little gem, yet?

Chairish is online shopping heaven, in my opinion. Their tagline is "Where Design Lovers Buy and Sell" if you are downsizing, like me or love design, this is the place to shop and sell. I love this page on Shabby Chic Style.

I will be going with my same mix of modern and Shabby Chic furnishings for our new home. I will need a much smaller dining room table. I have these 3 in mind:

 

The color and scale of this Lilly Pulitzer dining set makes my heart happy.

 

I like the idea of this simple farm table with bench seating. I could squeeze more people around this table and the bench wouldn't take up as much space visually. I'd probably paint the legs white.

 

This classic design with neutral colors is probably more like what we will go with. If the table had a leaf that extended it, this would be the one.

I will also need a replacement hutch. I found this lovely Vintage Ming Style Lacquered Buffet for only $1450. The scale is much better.

 

But I really am a Shabby Chic, Vintage loving girl at heart, so I think I will go with something more like this rustic gray piece.

 

Isn't it dreamy? Oh, and you must check out the accessories, the lighting and the rugs! I want these:

 

 

Is my design style "all over the place"? Probably. But I love mixing and matching Shabby Chic, rustic, new and modern pieces to create my own unique "Mix and Chic" style.

Downsizing has been a hard decision, but with most of our children grown, it is time to spend less time on our house and more time on vacation, don't you think? I will be excited to fill the new smaller home with lovely smaller furnishings and will be probably be listing my larger furniture pieces to sell on Chairish.com.

Now on to house hunting! Wish me luck. I'll be blogging our journey.

31 Days of Paint

Hello My Friends!

I've committed to doing the 31 days by The Nester. If you'd like to know more about the 31 days or see other blogs participating, click HERE.

My 31 days blog series will be about painting, because I really do paint something every a daily basis. I paint practically anything. From the exterior of my house (most recent project), furniture, art and everything in between. I will share with you painting techniques that I use to get the most from that can of spray paint or left over house paint. If you have any questions about painting, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to email me (see sidebar email icon) or comment a recent post.

I did this series last year, to check it out HERE. I will also put up a board on Pinterest of painting inspiration see it HERE and ideas that I love, as well as all the projects that I feature here during my 31 days of Paint series.

Here are just a few of my paint projects that I will be posting about during this series:

These are BEFORE pictures. I have transformed all of these pieces with paint and will be sharing my how to's along the way. Hope you will stay tuned for all the fun and let me know what you think along the way.

Links to the series:

Day #2 Introduction

Day #3 Green Dresser 

Day #4 Matching Changing Table

Day #5 BE SWEET sign & Chalk Paint Recipe

Day #6 Hollywood Sign Gets Paint

Day #7 UNPAINT

Day #8 Making New Paint Look Chippy

Day #9 How To Glaze

Day #10 Paint A Rug?

Day #11 Perfectly Imperfect Paint

Day #12 How to Crackle Paint With Elmer's Glue Video

Day #13 Baking Soda Chalk Paint Recipe Video

Day #14 3 Amazing Paint Tutorial Bloggers

Day #15 Quick Kitchen Paint Projects

Day #16 Painted Knife Block

Day #17 Chalk Art Inspiration

Day #18 Paint Dipped Spoons

Day #19 Mercury Glass & Painted Jar Tutorials

Day #20 Knife Burst Mirror

Day #21 Hollywood Sign Update

Day #22 Painting Numbers

Day #23 Painted Corner Cabinet Black & White

Day #24 Twin Bed Turned Bench

Day #25 Stenciled Hand Towels

Day #26 Painted Lamp

Day #27 Quotes Painted on Furniture

Day #28 Paint By Number Collections

Day #29 Stenciled Walls

Day #30

Day #31 Recap of 31 days of paint

Happy Painting! 

The One Room Challenge

I am so proud to announce that I am taking part in The One Room Challenge!

Me and 14 other talented Design bloggers from around North America will be designing a room from start to finish over the next 6 weeks. I hope you will check in every Wednesday  to see my progress and check in on the other bloggers rooms too! The Challenge starts today!

My Challenge Room:

This is Sophie's nursery. Sophie is now 6 and is a Tom Boy. Pink is her least favorite color. She tells her friends this room is actually dark red, but let's face it... it's HOT Pink.

This is also one of the smallest rooms in my house. It measures 75 inches wide by 110 inches long, roughly 6 x 9. Due to her rooms size, Sophie has been sleeping on a toddler bed, which she has almost out grown. This room has no closet and no storage areas. So a new bed and toy storage are the key elements that need to be added to this small space.

She has a closet in the hall that she uses for most of her clothes. She also has this dresser, which is looking a little worse for wear. It needs a face lift.

She likes her blue ceiling but it needs some touch up since we recently replaced the light fixture. I think I will be lightening the ceiling up with new paint.

None of this is Sophie's style. {Well, except the Hot Wheel track there in the bottom left.} When I asked her what color she wanted her room to be she said Orange. "ORANGE??" "Really???," my reaction. "Yes, Mom, O.R.A.N.G.E. it's my favorite."

So orange it is...

Tangerine and Aqua is what I settled on after finding this fabric inspiration.

It's the Dragon on the right that sold her on this fabric....

For me it was the flowers. This tangerine and blue flower is stunning.

So much to do, with so little budget. It's going to be a lot of repurposing, painting, building from scrap wood and using what we have on hand to create the Tangerine Tom Boy room of Sophie's dreams. Tune in next Wednesday for the building of the bed and other progress. And be sure to check out the progress of all of these talented ladies listed below, as we all take part in The One Room Challenge!

Saved by Suzy
Dutch.British.Love
Trapped in North Jersey
Nicole Scott Designs
Kim Macumber Interiors
Rue de Emily
The Pink Pagoda
refresheddesigns
Nana Moon Shop
Taylor Morgan Design
Insideways
My Crafty Home Life
House Four
Living Savvy
(A Lifestyle Thing)

My Favorite DIY Project of 2011

Here are a few of my favorite DIY projects from 2011.

        Spoon Curtain Tie Backs                      Distressed Dresser                       Ugly Lamp Gets Paint          

 

             Garden Chandelier Tutorial                                    Voice Sign Tutorial

Of all the DIY Projects I did this year, these chairs are my favorite:

After I spray painted these old chairs black and recovered the seats with drop cloth material, I thought they were pretty boring, so here's what I did:

I stencilled random numbers on the chair backs. Since these chairs are for my daughter's first apartment, she picked the numbers. Kids :)

These paper stencils were purchased at the local True Value Hardware store and the paint is just standard acrylic craft paint.

Such a great change!

Once I got this far, I decided I could not leave the seats all plain and boring.

So I measured my stripe.

Used my trusty painters tape and stencilled with black acrylic craft paint. I recommend adding a Fabric Medium to the paint to make it more durable and pliable. {See my tutorial on using Fabric Medium HERE.}

I used a stencil brush in a swirling motion to paint it on.

Aren't they just fun? My daughter just loves the way they turned out and so do I. I can't wait to begin working on my own dining room transformation. Beginning January 18th, I hope you'll come back to check it out!

Linking up with:

The DIY Show Off



Before and After Paint Series Recap

Welcome to day 30 of my 31 day series! I can't believe I made it through the entire month blogging every day with a new paint project {almost} every day. It's been such a blast! I plan on continuing with my paint series at least once a week. I have so many things yet to show you. If you would like to see the entire paint series go HERE. Today I thought I'd do a recap of the paint series.

 

Before and Afters

Ugly Lamp Gets A Paint Job

Little Blue Chair

Straw wreath painted and yarn wrapped

Mantel Revived

Night Stand Fix

I distressed over this one

3 Chandeliers Revamped

 

How To Weather Wood

Distressing A Dresser

Sign Tutorials:

Fall WELCOME Sign

Chippy Frame Gets A New Sign

Family Rules Sign

Chalk Board Sign

Love Sign and Shadowing Trick

Stencil Projects

Stenciled Chairs

Striped Seats

Painting Fabric Tutorial

One more day to go in my 31 days of Paint. It also happens to be my youngest's birthday and Halloween.