Sunday, August 1, 2010

Lights, lights, and more lights!

 An uncovered light bulb gives off harsh, intrusive, unfriendly light.  It is not pleasant to sit under,and does not facilitate good conversation or good company.  If N and I can't decide on a light fixture for the dining room... we might end up with a bare light bulb.  We've picked out a few we think we like - but none are REALLY striking home.  We haven't re-visited this topic since we picked out the rug, so one of these may very well be an option.  These choices are from Lowes and Home Depot.  We do have plans to visit a House of Lights as well.  We'd love any opinions on the following options to help us decide

We're looking for a dark metal.  Other than that... nothing to traditional and something a bit "straight-lined".  We also want the bulbs to face up instead of down.

Option 1: I don't love it, but I don't hate it.


Option 2: N is leaning hard towards this one.  I'm... not sold.  It seems a bit dungeon-y to me, and that's not the way the room is looking.  Definitely correct me if this doesn't make you think of a castle though.




 Option 3:  The globes may be a bit too yellowish, but I know you can buy different globes.  I'm just not sure how this would look with white ones. 
 Option 4: a lighter bronze - it looks a bit darker in person.  the points on the ends remind me of the berry stems on the rugs. 
 Option 5: This is a strong contender.  There's also a 3-light version.  I love the smoothness of the curves.
 Option 6: N saw this one and thought it was pretty neat.  At first we thought the room was moving towards a rustic look, but now I'm not so sure.  I don't care too much for the drum - as we are dealing with a formal dining room.  This just screams eat-in kitchen to me.
 Option 7: My favorite.  But - we've got two problems.  The ceiling in the dining room is a bit low - so I'm not sure if this would be too long.  I think I'd also like something with a bit more "spread".  But the uniqueness has caught my eye.  The second problem?  I can't find it ANYWHERE.  Its on Lowes' website, yet it is unavailable and I can't find any of the stores that have it in stock.  The brand is Portfolio, which looks to be a Lowes-only brand.  Major bummer.



As you can see, we are a bit all over the place.  This is the "last" thing that we have to figure out for the room, aside from the furniture.


Dining Room Extravaganza!

After completely the living room walls (I'll get a pic up of the finished work I promise), N and I decided to tackle the dining room.  After lots of image searches on Google and debating a few ideas back and forth, we determined that the color scheme was going to be based off of our wedding colors.  Those were a light blue, pink, and orange.  Throw in the fact that my dishes (and placemats and napkins) are black and off-white, and we had our colors.  A dark brown jumped in the mix as we decided we didn't want a ton of black and we want a dark wood table/chairs.  I know it sounds like a ton of colors... but it'll work.  I promise  =0)

Our wedding colors.
We decided that the blue we used for the wedding would be a bit... intense as a paint color.  Instead we decided that the blue the previous owners used in the kitchen would work perfectly.  It has just a bit more gray to tone it down.  The pink and orange will be very minimal - you'll find it in flowers on the table and as a highlighted color in black and white photos.  The black will be limited to the dishes, placemats/napkins, and the frames for the pictures.  The off-white color will be in the dishes, placemats/napkins, and in the dining room chairs. 

After tons of searching, we found our rug at Lowes.  I was extremely impressed by the number of options that they had, and the pricing wasn't too bad either.  I was concerned we were going to "need" to drop $1,000 on a Capel rug to find one like we wanted.  Peanut decided he wanted to pose for the picture.  =0)



 These are the curtains - they came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  I'm debating on putting a sheer white behind it to help the chocolate brown stand out.  That'll also help the wavy lines to pop, which was my favorite thing about them.  I was a bit disappointed that they came out looking so thin.


The (semi) finished product!  Yes, the flowers are fake, and I want to get pink gerbera daises to go with the orange ones.  Its the wrong time of year to find them though.  We were just looking for something simple to try out the pink and orange with everything else.  When we're expecting guests, they'll be replaced with real fresh flowers.

I'm not sure that the sailboat picture will stay, but it works for now.


That leaves us with lighting (which will be a separate post), wall decorations (which we still have to figure out), and furniture.

We know that N and I are going to get my Mom's china cabinet.  Its all in just figuring out when.  Its a fairly small cabinet, that's more of a tall display case in my opinion.  It would not provide a ton of storage, but would give us a place to show off my Grandmother's china, or any other important knickknacks we find or inherit.  The plan is to get a serving table/buffet that we can use to store the rest of the china and our barware.  That'll get the barware out of my kitchen cabinets, and free up some more space.

We know that we want upholstered dining room chairs in an off-white color that matches the napkins.  I know, I know - we don't even have kids yet and I'm wanting white furniture.  N and I have already discussed how we would handle that or any other spills that may happen on them.  The napkins have stripes on them that alternate from a matte to a sheen finish.  I'd love to find fabric like that to cover the chairs.  I'm looking for chairs with the fabric of the second one, yet in a style more like the first.

The wood of the table is pretty close to what we're looking for and that's the general overall look.  I'm not sure if we'll go oval or rectangle... it most likely will depend on what we find.  It'll be awhile before we're ready for furniture... but it is nice to know that we have our plan!