freshen up

Tom and I often talk about things we want to "do" around the house. It always sounds really fun until about 20 minutes in when I want to take it all back. Hit the rewind button and decide it was just fine the way it was. This time it was the dining room. And the little lady in the photo above started the whole thing.
Our dining room was red. RED. Everything was red. The walls and ALL the woodwork. I loved it when we did it and honestly, I still liked it, but it needed a change. I swear it feels a third larger now.

Anyway, I bought the lamp of the girl in the yellow dress with her dog off of etsy a few months ago. I looooove her! But I could not figure out where she should live. Tom was the one that suggested the dining room and the inspired change. Oh, and the Ikea light fixture was a huge part of the decision t revamp. The chandelier or most-hideous-light-fixture-ever, as I like to call it, that was there before HAD to go. We've been wanting to change it since Jesus was a baby, but just had not found the right thing. Why we ever bought it in the fist place is a mystery to me...I should post a photo...anyway, all I can figure is that it was super cheap at the Pottery Barn outlet and you know how that is: when something was a bajillion dollars and now it's like, $15, it's all of the sudden cute. That must be what happened. It wasn't cute.
There was some switcharoo-ing going on - the kitchen and the dining room swapped hutches, the black dresser turned bar moved from my friend Haley's garage to our dining room, and Vivian, our mannequin, got a new to her (my grandmother's) vintage linen dress.

The built in book cases that my Dad made for me for my birthday a few years ago look soooooo much better in white. Not sure what made me paint them red in the fist place, but now they feel like the built-ins circa 1950's house that I was shooting for.


Now it's all said and done. Tom did the lion's share of the work. Poor thing might never recover from scraping those dreadful popcorn ceilings (who EVER thought those were a good idea?). It took twice as long as I said it would, but I love it. Nice to have a bright, cheerful change to issue in spring.