Challenge : Delightful Dining Room

This post is aptly named.

When my husband and I got married, we didn't have any furniture to our names really. He lived in the military barracks and I just left my parents house. Over time we've slowly been purchasing random items and pieces of furniture but its never been something that matches. Now that we've moved into a decent sized house we are realizing that what we have is not enough. This house is the biggest house we have lived in and the small amount of furniture isn't cutting it.

I've been kind of a DIY nut lately and Ikea has been my best friend. In a previous post I talked about duplicating Pottery Barn ideas for a lot less money and this is what I'm hoping to accomplish in the dining room.

I want something rustic. Something that gives my dining room kind of an airy feeling. I love this buffet table but I can't pull $1500 out of my back pocket. I'm trying to save up to go to London!

Poking around I did see something similar in style. It's not exact by any means, but its close and comfortably priced at less than 200 euro. (Man I miss craigslist!) This one is at Ikea and like the PB one, it offers the drawers and the shelving for storage as well as being similar in color. I wonder if the shelves are adjustable? This will probably be our next major purchase.

I've started bringing some natural elements into the room, already, in the form of canvas chair covers (I found the tutorial from Hammers & High Heels this girl's blog is amazing!). I used canvas painters drop cloth from Lowes (mail order cause there is no Lowes here). I needed one drop cloth per chair, at around $15 a chair you can't beat it. $15 x 4 = $60 whereas PB similar one is $50 for one chair!

I hung some gauzy cream colored curtains and found this awesome bowl made of banana leaves for 10 euro at, of course, Ikea; as well as these pails that reminded me of dairy farms. I love them!! I put the tall one in the bathroom and I hope to put a bunch of dried lavender in it-- but the bathroom is for another post. The big one I think will look nice on the buffet. I also picked up a smaller galvanized bucket for napkin storage.

This room is most definitely a work in progress. I would love to get some sort of bar area to store our liquor bottles in and maybe some shelving units. The buffet is just one wall! Initially I wanted to hang a mirror horizontally over the buffet but I'm not sold on it. The wine rack was a great idea (high 5 PB!)-- I also like the idea of chalkboards or even a grouping of nice pottery.

I'm just gonna throw up some ideas here:

Love the simplicity of this set up. The glass definitely makes it feel really airy and is a substantial decorative piece, but it doesn't block the view from the window. I can easily find olive leaves here.. hello.. I'm in Italy! And of course.. look at that basket! UGH I love baskets!







This one is a little dark for my liking, but I wanted to point out the needle.. or obelisk or whatever that thing is.. it brings height to the table. The grapes are a neat idea as well. That barstool on the side of the buffet is a great little design piece.

Now this... I like!! How can I copy this!

Hmmmm ok.. off to brainstorm!