Dining Room Makeover Part 3

Yipee! Jesse finished my our dining table! When we tore down the deck last summer, Jesse saved the cedar stringers and upcycled them into a beautiful table. He is so clever and handy! Cedar is a soft wood that dents easily so we might need to order piece of tempered glass for the top.

There are a few things I'd still like to do (vintage light fixture!), but with the completion of the upcycled table, I'm feeling pretty happy about the dining area. I think I need to give Jesse a break from all the projects, too!
I love the way the space looks, but it's also a big improvement in terms of functionality. Our old dining chairs were awkward with low seats so I always felt like a little kid sitting at a big table. The new chairs and table have a better seat height to table height relationship - if that makes sense? The new table is also a few inches narrower so the added room makes it much easier to access the chairs along the wall.

This rug was previously located in our office. It's not really working for me but I'm not sure what I do want, so I'll need to think on it for a while. I'm open to suggestions!

A Little Modern Christmas Decor

Nap time is the best, especially when your kiddo is exhausted from all the Christmas excitement! Seriously, I think he will sleep for about three hours. Jesse and I are enjoying some lovely quiet time; he's watching  a Christmas movie while I'm having a little coffee (new cup from Santa!) and catching up on my blog. Life is good, folks! :)

Since it's Christmas and all, I thought I'd share some of the festive decor from around our house.  I strive to keep the decorations tightly edited so they don't overwhelm our petite house.

This year, I picked up some white lights on white cording from Target and used them to frame the window at the end of the "Hallway to Nowhere." I love seeing this when I come home in the evening; it's warm and festive but kinda chic, no? Sorry about the bike poking into the picture, but um, we live here. 

For me, the most exciting part of decorating this year was having a pseudo mantle to hang stockings on!  I bought the snowflake stocking hangers at Michaels several years ago and haven't had a place to put them. Of course, since I finally had a place to hang stockings, I couldn't resist making my own. I only managed to get two of them finished but when I make the other two, I plan to take photos and put together a tutorial. 

Getting our tree up this year was a bit of an adventure.  First, we cut down a lovely seven foot fir tree at our friend's farm. Then, we brought it home, set it up, and decorated it. Perfect. The next day, when I arrived home from work, our entire house smelled like cat pee! And we don't own a cat! It was definitely the tree. So, we un-decorated that sucker as quickly as possible and hauled it outside. We weren't in the mood to cut down another tree, so we said, "meh" and put up a borrowed faux one.

I also wanted to illustrate what a nerd I am by telling the story of the ornament shown above.  When I was seventeen, I went on a class trip to Europe. In Germany, while my friends were going crazy over Birkenstocks, I purchased a couple of delicate, hand blown glass Christmas ornaments. It may have seemed odd, but I'm glad I was thinking ahead. 

A Christmas tradition that Jesse and I started several years ago is picking out a hand blown ornament at a local artist coop. The clear ornament that looks like a bubble was my pick this year. 

I put a small tree in B's room and let him decorate it with all the non-breakable ornaments. He is absolutely thrilled with "his tree" and and loves to show it to guests. I think this will be a new tradition!

Lastly, since gift wrapping has always been a point of pride with me, I wanted to include a picture. I found a roll of paper table covering in the party section at Tuesday Morning and it worked great as wrapping paper. The string is red wool and the tag is a key label - those are kinda hard to write on neatly, by the way!

So, that's the Holiday decor around our house this year. I'm finishing this just in time, because our kiddo is up and my coffee is cold!

Merry Christmas!

A Window Bench for the Office

Chewed windowsill? What chewed windowsill?

I've been sprucing up our neglected home office and part of my plan included covering up a damaged windowsill (Juno's handy work). Ultimately, we need to replace the window, but I like the way this looks and it'll do the job until the weather warms up - who wants to replace a window when it's two degrees outside?!

This ottoman is such a workhorse! I bought it several years ago and have slip covered it at least four times. For this go around, I skipped the sewn and tailored cover and went with a fast staple gun job. Seriously fast. I came home for lunch on Tuesday, kicked off my heels and finished in forty minutes. I was probably looked a little flushed at my next meeting!
After the ottoman was finished, I added a large bolster filled with stuffing from two toss pillows I wasn't using.  To finish the cover-up, I added curtains made from inexpensive panels that I snazzed up with pretty black and white linen.  I like how the combination of ottoman, bolster and curtains has a sort of window seat effect.


Have you ever had to come up with a creative way to "hide" damage from your dog?
materials list and budget break down:
- 2 curtain panels plus 2 yards of linen fabric, $30
- 3 yards of clearance upholstery fabric for ottoman and bolster - $15
- 4 yards of white fabric for faux window shades - $20
- 1/2 yard of polka dot fabric for toss pillow - $5
Total project cost - $70