Editing the Dining Room.

I love everything about this dining room.  I love the mismatched chairs (especially the Ghost chair).  I love the art work. And I love the laid back vibe. 

Via Domino

Our dining room feels a lot like a glorified corridor! It is long, narrow and has a slightly dropped ceiling (thankfully not the textured kind).  It does have two very large windows that face East and has tons of unrealized potential.  I have always been at a loss to make this room feel right.  It has always felt cramped and very boring.  The other problem was that we had a table and buffet which were really dark, heavy and too big for the space. For years I tried to work with what I had because I hate getting rid of stuff.  Anyway  I finally decided to get rid of everything in the dining room and start afresh.  For now I am keeping the blue walls.  We sold the dining room table and buffet on Craigslist (for the same price as that we paid in 1999 when we bought it).   Now I want to get rid of the chrome chairs.  They are fabulous  but I need some slimmer chairs for the small space.

Our Dining Room before we sold the table and buffet.


I love the gallery walls in the image below.  My plan to make the dining room feel less like a corridor is to cover all the walls in interesting art work, photos and other stuff (I love to frame anything).


Via sfgirlbybay

I would like to find a solid wood table, if possible made of reclaimed teak.  I bought a credenza a while ago on eBay.  It is Danish and it is gorgeous.  My camera is not working right now so I won't be able to post any pictures of it for a while.  For seating I may find a vintage bench to go against one side of the wall and use some of the mismatched chairs that we have in the basement.  I plan on funding all my purchases for the dining room with the money I make selling my stuff.  I have a huge old Persian rug and also a china cabinet (part of the dining room set) that I plan on selling soon on Craigslist. 

Re-dcorating the Guest Room.

After spending some time in November and December vacationing I realized the importance of having a very comfortable and beautiful guest room. This is what the guest room looks like now:

Our guest room is pretty tiny but it faces South and is always filled with light. To make it more guest friendly I need to make it feel more fabulous than it is now. I think we need to add some shelving, maybe in the alcove (next to the window and not seen in this picture) and over the bed. I would like to fill the shelves with some books about Philly and other great reads. We have no shortage of books in the house and this would give me more storage for the books and also provide our guests with some good reading material. I love the shelves in the images below and would like to use these images as inspiration to build our own shelves:

Via Design Sponge

(source unknown)

Since the room is pretty small I want to paint it a dark color, maybe a greenish grey and attempt to obtain a cocoon effect. I think that smaller bedrooms look much better in a darker color. I don't think that a small room ever looks bigger with a light color. Similarly, I think a small room looks better with larger pieces of furniture, even if they take up a lot of space, instead of tiny furniture scattered around.

I think that I will also paint the lamp base in black and get a smaller end table. Also, the batik peacock art will be moving to the basement temporarily. I want one large painting over the bed.

I hope that this will be a short and inexpensive project!