OK then, the dining room transformation is underway!

So I didn't get it quite together enough to download the pictures - hopefully later today.

I have decided on a paint color for the dining room. HOOORAH!!!! Good lord - THAT only took, what, 5 months? ugh. Dark, stained, red oak wood trim will do that to you. You'll think you have the perfect color, get the sample color home, and EGAD.

But, I have found the one. It's called Burlap - from Sherwin Williams. It's a lighter neutral...sort of a green/brown/yellow/gray/taupe?!?!?! lol - I know - but it is one of those "chameleon" colors. I LURVE it. AND it looks good against the wood trim AND works going from our living room, which is painted Butternut, into our kitchen - which is painted an old Martha Stewart color, called Fell ( a dark, olivey-army green color - I know, sounds crazy but it's beautiful against our cream glazed cabinets).

I'm excited about the paint color and I think I'm going to start priming those red walls this week. Then painting. THEN ordering new cream color curtains and a rug.

Here's the next part. We inherited our dining room furniture from hubby's parents. It isn't really our style but it was free. So you go with what you got - right? Anyway - I've never been in love with the chairs. They are a bit too formal for my tastes so I was looking around for possibly getting new chairs.

I'm in love with the "Couture" chairs from Ballard Designs. LOVE them. LOVE the slipcovers. Love the pleat details. NOT in love with the $230 price tag that goes along with the chairs. Seriously. $230 each. Nope. BUT the slipcover, which is SO cute, is only $20. THAT is doable. I was thinking of maybe slipcovering our chairs myself - but for $20 I'm thinking those may just be the better option. Now, our chairs dimensions are almost identical. My thought process is that I will order 1 slipcover and just see how it works on our current chairs. If it fits - I'll order 3 more - if it doesn't - I'll send it back and attempt slipcovering them myself. It could happen...

Another potential problemo is that we really have 6 dining room chairs - but 2 of them are meant for the end of the table and they have arms. Well, they just don't sell slipcovers for dining chairs with arms or at least I haven't been able to find them if they do. So I may have to attempt those myself or see if I can find a seamstress around here to work something up for me on those. Or maybe I'll just put those chairs away and move our bench into the dining room....hmmmm....

I've also re-vamped the current chandelier in the dining room. More to come on that too. Stay tuned...