From GreenHouse to Small House...Dining Room

Yesterday I showed you the cheerful little dining room in the CharityWorks GreenHouse, so today I thought I would show you my own cheery little dining space.

It's a small intimate space at just 10'8" by 11'.2", but it's plenty big enough for me and when I have a gathering, it forces everyone to chat to everyone else (no room to be a wallflower here).

 

This is the view into the dining room from my living room...

 

And the view from my kitchen.

I recently gave the dining room a makeover to give it a more casual look.  The feel before was way too formal for the way I live.  I had very formal green damask slipcovers from Ballard Designs on the parsons chairs that I replaced with these cotton twill ones (color is called butter), also from Ballard.  That table is from Ballard Designs too.

I took down the sconces on the wall and put the plates up and switched out the other artwork with some pieces I had purchased on vacations and at local art shows over the past few years.

 

 

The only piece I didn't change was this sweet portrait of a woman I bought years ago in an antique store (pretty sure it's just vintage, not antique) that has since closed.  I'm a terrible photographer and the light is shining on it, but it's actually beautiful in person.

Here is something else I didn't change...the rug.  It's a Karastan (called Kirman I think) and I love the millions of colors converging in this design.  I fell in love with this rug when I was still living in an apartment and was determined to buy it and put it in my dining room once I owned a home.  It was one of my first purchases and I still love it.

I'm still not happy with the bookshelves, but storing books here is a necessity.  In a small house, rooms often have to serve more than one purpose.  Having all this storage for my books is something I love and have always taken advantage of.  I used to store my decorating books here so that I could access them quickly when I was sitting in the living room watching TV (cause God forbid I actually focus on doing just one thing at a time).  But the decorating book collection eventually became too large and had to be moved to the home office.

So how do you like that 1940s temp control on the wall?  He..he...it's bad, I know.  I'll update it one of these days.

 

I store my cloth napkins, napkin rings and wine ID rings in the cabinet below the built in bookcase.

 

No idea what the point of this little built in cubby is, but there you have it.  Someone told me once they used to put these in homes as a spot to hold the telephone (phones in 1940 were quite a bit larger), but I'm not buying it for this space.  I mean why would they put it in the dining room?  That's usually the one time when no one is willing to answer the phone right?  While dining?  If you have a clue, let me in on the secret.