Happy Monday guys. We spent the weekend finally entertaining in the new house and it felt so great. We had three families over, 7 adults and 8 kids in all. The littles wore their Halloween costumes and the adults stuffed our faces with some super yummy chicken tortilla chili/soup (keep an eye out for the recipe in our newsletter soon) and watched lots of college football.
I’ve been fortunate to score some major deals lately and we finally have the house furnished enough to accommodate entertaining. Which means it’s time for a Forever Home Update! Today I’m sharing my progress on the dining room and our attempt at farm house modern. Just as Julee tackled a totally blank space with her living room last week, we also started with a clean slate here.
Read on for a glimpse at what we’ve accomplished so far. Also, I would really appreciate your help again.
We need to select a rug for this room to cover up the majority of those weird dark floors and I’d love for you guys to weigh in on our top two contenders in the comments (spoiler: there will be a related giveaway here in the very near future).
The first thing we had to address was in this room was the table. The room is big enough to accommodate a table that seats 8 to 10 so we wanted to get a large table (without a corresponding large price tag). Enter my newfound love/addiction for Joss & Main.
I mentioned in my last dining room update that we took the plunge and ordered the above table from the flash deal site – after that I nervously held my breath for a good couple of weeks and waited to see how it would look in the room.
In the meantime we also purchased 10 white dining chairs and 3 matching bar stools for the kitchen from Target. (We took advantage of a promotion they were having in which you saved 20% after spending a certain amount total – can’t remember exactly how much now.)
Above is how the two look together. I love the light “oatmeal” color of the table and I’m very impressed with how sturdy and well-made it is. Plus I got it for less than half of the price other online furniture stores are asking for it. (Side note: the table isn’t on sale right now but I’ve seen it on Joss & Main 3 times in the last month so chances are good it may come around again.)
I’m really pleased with the outcome and plan to add some type of fancier chairs to the ends of the table sometime in the future. There’s no big rush though since we used the same chairs for our eat-in kitchen table and can always use those for extra seating.
Once we figured out a place for people to sit and eat, the next big thing to tackle was storage. Although not designed specifically as a dining room hutch, I was really excited about all the color options and, again, the price of these accent cabinets. Once I saw a buy one, get one 40% off online deal at Target I was sold.
These hutches hold all of our china and crystal safely and the green adds a nice pop of color. Once the hutches arrived I realized that we could use one more to fit the space and for the storage so I ordered another.
Now three more things remain in this room – lighting, wall art, and flooring. The lighting’s going to have to wait a while and the art is temporary. The canvas up now is old but I’ve got these rad Halloween prints on the wall and I can replace those with the same shop’s Thanksgiving and Christmas printables ($5 to download the set and $3 each to print at Staples using their engineer prints option), so that will get me through the holidays.
The flooring really needs an immediate update though. If you can’t tell from the photo, the flooring in here is a pretty cheap laminate flooring. Why the previous owners choose a dark laminate when the rest of the floors in the downstairs are a light natural wood is beyond me, but it doesn’t go real well with the wood trim and windows.
My solution? As large of a rug as possible. You may remember we tried out the carpet-tile product FLOR in our old house. I immediately thought of using it again because I knew they offered some interesting, modern sisal options. Also, I loved the idea of being able to replace just one tile instead of the entire rug if someone spilled something especially messy while eating.
So I reached out to them and, good news, they’re going to help out both me and you. Today I need your help picking out a new rug for this space and in the next couple of weeks we’ll be giving away a $250 gift card to FLOR. So here are the two choices I’m mulling over:
- Roadside Attraction – color: Eggnog, $17/ 19.7″ square
- Vintage Vibe – color: Cream, $19/ 19.7″ square
I’m leaning towards the chunky weave of roadside attraction but I really like the ikat-like pattern of Vintage Vibe too.
Question of the Day
Which rug would you choose?
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