Chic Neutral Basics for a dining room

While searching for tufted chairs last week for a client I stumbled upon some great finds that I had to share.

 

I know Lands End has been all over the blog world with their new Canvas line, but what some may not know is that they have a furniture line!

 

Check out these great basics that can work in a variety of ways.

 

Dining Table for $469

 

Stylish tufted dining side chair: $99

The heads of the table can have Wing Chairs for $230 each.

Instead of all side chairs I would put a bench ($170) on one side to break it up! 

They even have a sideboard ($650) to go along with it.

I think these pieces are great for people that are afraid of bringing random pieces together. While all the pieces are part of a set it doesn’t look like it due to the variety in the seats and the fabric/wood combo.

 

You can easily just add a couple of pieces to an existing set up or snatch up the whole thing and accessorize the room to mix it up.

 

Natural wood furniture will always be in style. It’s a classic. Mixing up the pieces from above and you can get a similar look to this dining room from LONNY.

Or you could take the pieces above and go a bit more traditional like the dining room below from My home ideas.

 

Or take the pieces from above and give your dining room a Cottage chic look inspired by Kate from Centsational Girl.

The possibilities are endless.

Bird Brain

I’m completely exhausted from this weekend. I was in charge of hosting Father’s day this year and It was a lot of hard work due to all the rain. Rain meant no BBQ, which meant an actual meal, which meant a very cranky Camila by dessert time.

So, this morning it’s taken me a bit longer to get into the swing of things. I’m having problems thinking hence my blog post title, but in addition to all that I actually do have birds on the brain.

Since I finally have furniture in my dining room my brain has been overworked these last couple of days trying to figure out what wallpaper I want to use in that room.

My original thoughts were to go with F Schumacher's Chenonceau in Bisque:

Pictured is the pattern in Charcoal.

I love how the pattern is a great mix of traditional and modern and it seemed like the perfect fit for my home. I was practically sold when I realized one of the birds in the pattern was a peacock and I have a soft spot in my heart for them since my married name Pavone, means Peacock in Italian.

I was pretty certain this was the route I was going to take, but then in looking at my inspiration files I came face to face with my all time favorite room that I think sums up my design style pretty well:

 Image via Domino Magazine. Designed by Miles Redd, Photographed by Paul Costello

I have not been able to get that wallpaper out of my head. It’s perfection. It would go amazingly in my house and add a little additional touch of vintage.

I tossed and turned all night trying to figure out who makes that paper. I searched and searched and couldn’t find any info, but I’m leaning towards thinking it is de Gournay hand painted wallpaper. Totally not in the budget. I was distraught until I remembered another image I loved from an old Martha Stewart living issue that had a similar vibe.

I then also remembered the same paper had been used in an old issue of Domino:

 So don’t need that huge butterfly, but the paper is absolutely beautiful!

The print is called Birds and Butterflies and it’s from F Schumacher, which means yes still a little pricey, but more doable.

I can’t seem to find it on their site so I hope they are still making it. I’m setting up my to the trade account with them today (yay!) so I’ll have to ask and find out.

Have any of my readers seen any amazing wallpapers like the ones above that I must see?

I’m open to suggestions!!

Weekend Recap

Hello My loves,

So I’ve been totally excited to share with everyone the steal that I got over the weekend at a local thrift shop! I get up this morning totally excited and grab my camera to take pictures and of course the battery is dead! It needed to charge, which meant this blogger needed to calm down and wait for it to do so.

Well the battery has now charged and I snapped some shots for all to see!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now you will know that my dining room has been quite the sore spot for me. You can read more about here and here. I'll be in my house 2 years this coming January and in that time I have gone through two sets of furniture for my dining room.

Most recently my dining room looked like this:

Yes folks, your eyes are not deceiving you that is a plastic table with plastic chairs. I call it outdoor chic.

Since I have already gone through 2 sets that didn’t work out for one reason or another I decided to take my time and find the perfect thing. So since Feb my dining room has looked like the image above.

On Saturday I went to a thrift shop to search for some furniture for my SIL who is moving into her own apt in the beginning of July and would like to get everything with the price tag of FREE! Well the thrift store is the closest I can get to that.

So off I went with my hubby. (Yes I dragged him there as well. The poor guy gets taken on all my decorating adventures)  Of course the two sofas I had scouted out for my SIL earlier in the week were already sold, but I found dining room furniture!

I originally had my heart set out to get something from Martha Stewart. I love the classic lines her furniture has and how they look a bit traditional, but more importantly chic and timeless.

  Example of Martha Stewart’s Dining Room Furniture collection.

Since I still wanted to have money to you know by food and stuff I put MS furniture on the back burner and tried to search for something similar in style.

Enter my amazing find from this weekend:

 The color is a bit deeper in person, but isn’t that veneer amazing?

The table is a double pedestal, which I really wanted and fits in the space perfectly.

It came with 6 chairs that I’m going to paint to not have everything look so matchy-matchy and of course we need some new fabric for the seat. I also on the hunt for two amazing upholstered chairs for the heads of the table.

 

The glasswork on the piece is amazing. In all the 3 pieces the glass is bowed. The pieces on the left and the right had a diamond design in gold leaf. I didn’t really enjoy it so with a razor blade I was able to scrape it up. By “I” I totally mean Jon did most of it, but I helped!

The most amazing thing was the price! It was originally around $900 at the Thrift Shop. It had been there for a couple of months so when I went in last Monday it was done to $589. Then I went back with Jon on Saturday and it has on sale again for $488. Then I asked if there was any wiggle room on the price and got them down to $445!

We were able to fit the table and four chairs in Jon’s chair right away so we packed it up and hurried home. Getting the china cabinet was a little more difficult. It is only one piece so you can’t separate it and it was too large to fit in Jon’s Highlander.

So we went to Home Depot where we kinda lied and said we needed to rent the flatbed truck for something large we were buying there. Then as soon as we got the keys we ran out, didn’t buy anything, drove to the thrift store, picked up the china cabinet and 2 chairs, drove home and then back to home depot and returned it. Ah of course the home depot, thrift store and our home were in completely different towns so it was quite a bit of driving, but it only cost us $30 to use their truck!

I’m super excited, because now I have extra funds to get amazing wallpaper, fabric and lighting! Plus we need a server for the opposite side of the room, but I’m hoping I can find a thrift store find for that!

Whew, if you read all that then Congrats! I was so excited to get it and even more excited to share it with you all. I can already see it coming together and of course you are going to come along for the ride. I think I’m going to tackle my wallpaper pick first and of course I’ll want opinions.

Delights from Delights by Design

In my eyes Blair can do no wrong. Her taste is always impeccable and completely effortlessly stylishly and she constantly makes me go from wanting a certain outfit or room to straight out NEEDING that item.

I tend to joke with her that Hubby isn’t going to be too happy with her, because she is why my wish list is always growing and growing and this week she didn’t disappoint.

My dining room has been the ban of existence. (Yes, I’m totally dramatic). We’ve been in the house a year and a half and it is still empty.

Ok not empty, but it looks like this:

Yes folks we resorted to a plastic table and plastic outdoor chairs! It’s very modern and up and coming. Last week I was having dinner guest over and couldn’t stand looking at the plastic table anymore so I grabbed some extra fabric I had laying around and voila tablecloth!

Since this a temporary fix that I’m slowly getting irritated by I’ve been on the quite the search for inspiration and then I saw this on Blair’s blog:

Wow I’m in love. I love to mix and match and this is just perfection! The Saarinen Tulip table has always been on my wish list (plus I wanted a round table), the different color and style of the chairs really add something different to the mix and I love the touch of sparkle with the Chandelier!

So now the hunt begins to find a fab Saarinen table on Craigslist that needs a happy home.

What chairs would you throw into the mix. Originally I wanted to do a pleated slipcovered Parson chair.

Would it work?