Christmas in the Dining Room

I hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas season and are getting all your shopping done!. We try to keep Christmas simple but there are eleven of us, so when eleven people buy eleven people gifts, it piles up!

I'm slow at shopping and a slow Christmas decorator. I never start until the day after Thanksgiving. Instead of shopping on that day, I have my guys get all the Christmas boxes down from the attic and start at it. I only bought a couple of new things this year. I mostly just like to try putting the old things in new places. 

Our main floor is all open and our dining room is between our family room and our living room. It's also open to the kitchen. We love the open floor plan and it's especially nice at the holidays when we're all together..

My husband made our dining room table several years ago and we love it! He made it out of $125 worth of 'white wood' and it's still perfect. I did the sanding and staining. We add a smaller table to it on the holidays so that we can all sit together.

My favorite thing at Christmas is the trees. I've had as many as four decorated before but I gave one to our daughter a few years ago. The last few years, I've had this one in the dining room.

This year I decorated it in blue and gold to go with the toile and ticking in here and the living room.

I love this sleigh from Hobby Lobby. I got it last year and it's perfect as a centerpiece for our table.

I recently painted our china cabinet a soft blue. I also lightened the deeper blue that I had on the back inside the cabinet.

My parents were stationed in Germany when I was born and when they returned to the States, they brought back lots of treasures. One of them is this beautiful set of De Haviland china.

This china has been put away in the bottom of our other china cabinet and after I painted this blue, I brought it out to display it. I love the softness and dimension it adds to this area.

I know the holidays are hard for some who are missing loved ones. We have lost family members too and miss them even more this time of year. I'm praying that God brings comfort to you and happy memories of your times together.

love and blessings~

"Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife,[a] who was with child." Luke 2:4-5

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New Dining Room Chairs

There's something so romantic to me about big solid dining room tables. I always imagine families and friends gathered there for hours, after the children have run off to play, enjoying wine by candlelight and sharing stories and laughter. Our family is in the growing stage; husbands, grandchildren, girl friends, etc. When we're all together for holidays and family dinners, there's twelve of us now.

Our upholstered dining room chairs are one of the few things we purchased new. We bought six of them a few years ago and within no time, we didn't have enough. So when I spotted these six cane-back chairs on Craig's list for $125, I was thrilled. And it doesn't hurt that they are very French Country.

They echo the lines of our china cabinet and even the mirror that I recently put across the room, which I will share soon.

The lovely couple that was selling them live about an hour away and when I showed up at their house, they were so kind. The husband insisted on putting every chair in the back of my vehicle for me and the sweet wife and I shared our faith in Christ.

She told me that the chairs had belonged to her mother and were about sixty years old.  They are so well made and sturdy and were in almost perfect condition. I was so happy that when I brought them home that the height and scale of these chairs worked so well with our existing chairs.

I painted them with chalk paint. I have two paint colors that I mixed several months ago for our furniture. After I mixed them to get the color I want, I took them to Lowe's and had them match them. I add chalk paint additive to them that I purchased through Amazon. It's a lot cheaper this way and means I have chalk paint in whatever color I want, when I want it.

I first put a coat of the darker shade on them and then brushed the lighter shade over that here and there, to get an uneven finish.  Then I lightly sanded them and added a coat of chalk paint wax that I purchased at Lowe's.  I recovered the chair pads in drop cloths, since we have little grandchildren.

I'm using our old dining room chairs at the head and foot of the table and now there's room for all six of the new chairs on the sides. I usually have slipcovers on these chairs but I took them off for these photos. I'm thinking about making some new ones.

I put the rest of our old chairs around the game table in the basement and it's easy to bring up any extras when we need them for big dinners.

My husband built our dining room table a few years ago. To our family, it's a treasure. He signed the bottom and dated it. Someday, I imagine it will be a family heirloom.

I got these two ginger jars at HomeGoods a few weeks ago.

I just never seem to get tired of blue and white.

You may have noticed that the shutters and wood finish seem lighter. They are! And I've got lots more changes coming up! Don't ya just love paint!

love and blessings~

"Behold, I will set your stones in turquoise, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. I will make your summits of rubies and your gates of crystal, and your entire wall of precious stones."

Isaiah 54:11,12

Sources:

New dining room chairs - second hand

Dining room table - my husband made it

Dining room chairs at head and foot - Ebay

China cabinet - second hand

Blue and white - HomeGoods and HobbyLobby

Large white vase - Joss&Main

French sign - Joss&Main

French demijohn - One Kings Lane

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Love and Chicken Wire

Remember when I found this wonderful china cabinet for a mere $100 and then painted it?  I wanted to put chicken wire in the doors and my husband preferred the glass.

Well, I just dropped it but did not put the glass doors back in.  I don't know if you've noticed, but there's been nothing in the doors.

This morning I asked him if we had any chicken wire.  He said we didn't.  I asked how much chicken wire cost.  He looked on his phone and told me $10 for more than I would ever need.  We both looked at the china cabinet.

He didn't have any classes to teach today so in a while he got dressed and left...a little later than usual.  I was puttering around the kitchen when he came walking back in with a new roll of chicken wire.  lol

He said, "Is this what you want?"  I laughed and said, "Yes!"  And he went off to work!

I added the chicken wire to my cabinet with a staple gun.

I love it!  I love him.

Happy Thursday!

love and blessings~

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:30

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Painting a China Cabinet

Happy Monday!

I hope you're having a great start to your week!

Several weeks ago I found this china cabinet at a Salvation Army rummage sale for $100!  It had all the French Country curves that I love and was so blessed and excited to find such a great bargain.

Here is the cabinet when I first showed it to you several weeks ago.

I had always thought I'd paint it.  I love the look of painted furniture and have pinned so many beautiful pieces on Pinterest.  Painted Furniture

I recently painted this piece and I've loved the way it turned out and had decided I would paint the interior of the china cabinet the same way.

So a couple of days ago I removed all the dishes and the glass panels and started painting.  I'm still a little uncomfortable painting furniture but I figured the worst thing that could happen is I would have to paint it a couple of times to get it like I wanted it.  So I started the same way - painting the interior with the same turquoise I used on the small cabinet.

While that was drying, I painted the exterior SW Gray Beige with a chalk paint additive I purchased through Amazon. Rusty Hippo Instant Chalk Paint I didn't worry about getting it in all the crevices too much.  When that dried, I dry-brushed a darker beige chalk paint (that I custom mixed) over the whole cabinet.  Before that had really had time to cure, I went back over the cabinet with a sponge sander, taking the paint off the edges.

I increased my contrast on these pictures so you can better see the details.

I also added a dark blue paint over the turquoise in the interior.  I didn't leave it this 'choppy' but this is the last picture that I took while I was painting.

I used more of the darker beige color in the panels on the base of the cabinet.

I had pulled the cabinet out away from the wall to paint it and when I took a break to eat lunch realized I really liked it at that angle.  So I left it like that.

Pulling it out away from the wall made it more of a focal point in the room.

I haven't added the glass back in the doors.  I mentioned to my husband that I'd like to put chicken wire in the doors instead.  While he hugged me, he told me we didn't have any more chicken wire and he didn't think they sold it any more, so we'll see how this goes.  lol

Even though I love our floor plan I have missed having a formal dining room.  This has added enough 'drama' to the room and I'm much happier with the whole feeling.

We recently got a new patio door and last week had a new living room window put in so I'm trying to keep them out of the pictures until we get moulding put up.  Then I'll share the whole area with you, including the updates we've made on our kitchen.

I'm really loving all the summer home tours that are being posted right now!  We've done so many changes since I did a home tour last year that I think I'll try to do the same in the next couple of weeks.

Have a wonderful week!

love and blessings~

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." Matthew 5:7 

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Our New China Cabinet

I've been thinking about showing you our dining room for a while but the funny thing is that if I had shown it to you last week it would look completely different than it does today!

On Saturday, our local Salvation Army had a rummage sale.  I saw the sale on Facebook and spotted a china cabinet that looked remarkably like what I'd been hoping to find for a while.  The Facebook post said the sale started at 9am and it was 9:20.  I think I "strolled in" about 9:25.  lol

And it was just what I wanted!  For $100!  I didn't even bargain.  After all, the money was all going to the Salvation Army and the china cabinet was perfect!  And in excellent condition.

So after three trips from the church to our house, and moving our old china cabinet to the family room and our grandfather clock to the entry hall and getting the new china cabinet into the house and into the dining room - I have the china cabinet of my dreams!

And it fits perfectly!  If it was an inch wider it would have been too big.  I love that it has three shelves and that I have all this additional storage.  I love the French Country curved top and the beautiful inlay on the doors.

I've recovered my dining room chairs since you saw them last.  I had made slipcovers for the chairs in a white duck and foolishly did not pre-wash the fabric.  When I washed them, they shrunk so much that I couldn't get them back on the chairs!  So I made new slipcovers from drop cloths in an oatmeal color.  This time I pre-washed them and made them a lot looser.

I love our new china cabinet with the dining room table that my husband made.  It's the perfect balance between rustic and elegant.

We are waiting right now to get new windows installed in our dining room, in our living room and in our upstairs master bedroom.  So hopefully, I'll have that to show you soon.  I think it will make a big difference in the appearance of our dining room and living room.

I took these pictures on a cloudy morning hoping I could get better detail.  Essentially one wall of this room is a window and it makes very hard to get good pictures.

Here's the view looking into our kitchen. Our living room is to the left and I will show it to you soon.

Hope you're having a great week!

Love and blessings~

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:38,39

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