Dining Room Makeover Plans

Most of the first floor has come together in the last year, which has only made my agony about what to do with my formal dining room worse. The dining room is sandwiched between our living room and the TV room in an open concept-like manner, so it's been really hard to decide on colors and themes that won't be a carbon copy of the other rooms but still work seamlessly in transitioning from room to room.

The overall feel of the room hasn't changed much since we moved in last summer. We used the same paint shade from our living room, "Marshmallow" by Sherwin Williams (our favorite shade of warmish white!),  and replaced the chandelier with a more modern, playful brass fixture from Kichler.

The furniture aspect has caused a lot less stress than the color palettes and design plans thus far, but still a fair amount of stress, all things considered. My current dining set (not the same as the picture above) and I have been together since my junior year of college- while being pretty utilitarian with its self-storing table leaf and surviving living with a handful of artists, I've decided it's time we part ways. It's just too traditional for my taste- why keep something around that you don't fully love?

I took a trip to Main Street Modern (a 40,000 square foot warehouse full of mid-century modern goodies in Canton, OH) at the beginning of last month with my mom primarily to shop around for dining sets. We came out physically empty-handed BUT apparently all I needed was a trip through this warehouse to find the inspiration for EXACTLY what I wanted my dining room to be-- because, figuratively, i was scrambling to handle all of the ideas I had.

While wandering the space, we came across this MASSIVE fiber art triptych. The panels were probably 12 feet high, maybe 3 feet wide, and I was mesmerized. I still can't get over the colors, which inspired me the most.

Mustard yellow is super en vogue right now, but even if it weren't-- it's been my power color for a few years now. Combined with a very light millennial pink, I knew I had landed the perfect palette to tie in the pink from the kitchen and the mustard that I've used in both the living room and TV room. It was definitely a "light bulb" moment.

I've already found a new-to-me dining set, fabric to recover the chair seats, and if you follow me on Instagram and watch my stories, I finally pulled the trigger on the rug that I've been lusting over. RIP, bank account. I still have a few things I need want to source-- like a matching Broyhill Brasilia credenza and some appropriate art-- but I finally feel like my agony is over and things are falling into place.

Check out my mood board below and let me know what you think!

Kitchen Refresh Part 2 - It's done! (sort of)

Before you start reading this post, I want you to take a deep breath- the following will leave you incredulous. (too dramatic, maybe?)

The kitchen is DONE! (ish)

When I last checked in over a year ago, I recapped our kitchen painting debacle- to which I fondly refer as "The Great Wallpaper Discovery of 2017." They'll be teaching that tale in U.S. history classes someday. From when we first saw the house, to having the walls scraped and professionally skim coated, to being PAINTED almost two months after we moved in-- it's quite a transformation and was well worth the sweat, tears, and dermatitis from the plaster dust.

Our kitchen isn't exactly how I imagined it to be-- which is a good thing. I had plans of painting everything white to give it a fresh feel and filling in with colorful accents. Looking back, I think it would have felt way too sterile and devoid of personality. I collected so many "cutesy" dessert-like trinkets when we lived in our duplex that it only made sense to lean into that theme in the new house. I'm so happy we did!

We painted the wainscoting a bright pure white and the newly smoothed walls above "Lotus Petal" by Behr. It ended up being the perfect hue! And before you ask how I got my partner to agree to so much pink- Nate took some convincing. It is kind of intense shade of pink after dark, but in the mornings with the light pouring in, it's perfect.

We ended up landing on our paint shade after we requested a sample from Big Chill (the retro refrigerator company) for their pink and mint colors to see if we could find a match-- the pink fridge is actually perfect match with Behr's Peppermint Stick, but we went a shade lighter with Lotus Petal.  I dream that someday we'll order a Big Chill fridge (though I'm leaning more toward a white fridge these days) and it will be marvelously cute. Unrelated- anyone have a spare $3000 lying around?

Our kitchen dining set is vintage- my mom and I found it on craigslist and drove over an hour to pick it up. The chairs were originally a mustard yellow floral before we recovered them-- I wish I had taken a before picture of them! This set is definitely the "showstopper" of the space and I'm so happy we stumbled across it.

Another one of my favorite parts of the kitchen is our pendant light! If I could link to it, I would but it's actually a family heirloom of sorts. This fixture is actually from my parents' first house. My mom ended up holding onto it after they sold their house but never hanging it in the home I grew up in, so they gave it to me! It's honestly perfect for the space and so sweetly sentimental.

As far as the kitchen goes- we're done with sprucing for a little while. I have a list of things I'd like to tackle that I'll get into in another post, but most of that can wait for now-- We're content for the time-being and mainly occupied by trying to keep the kitchen clean. Wish us luck with that!

Follow along on instagram for more #ivyleaguehouse updates!

Materials & Products Used
Wall Paint - Behr's Lotus Petal 
Dinette Set - Vintage, Craigslist
White Pendant Light - Vintage, similar here
Retro Microwave - Amazon
Automatic Trash & Recycling Cans - Amazon
Ice Cream and Popsicle Prints - Jodi Lynn Doodles
Ice Cream Hands Print - Sami Wideberg, Society 6
Donut Plaque - Everyday is a Holiday
Donut Neon - Urban Outfitters, similar here
Ice Cream Cookie Jar - Vintage
LuRay Pastel Dishes - Vintage, eBay
Felt Letter Board - Vintage Revivals, similar here
Floral Recipe Box, Rifle Paper Co.
Cake Cone planters - Target dollar spot, closest dupe i can find here 

A year later...

Well, hey! Long time, no see!

It's been a minute since I've posted on here- by definition (my own), a minute is about a full 365 days. Lots of things have happened since then- honestly, it feels like that year has gone by in a blink of an eye. I have quite a bit of catching up to do on here!

In the past year, I've spent A LOT of my time prepping the house, curating spaces as best I can on a budget (you feel me?), I started a new job way closer to home than my last one (!!!!!!!) , and spent a lot of time with family & friends. It's been a good one, but the end of this year and going forward, I'll be posting more consistently here. Fingers crossed.

Anyway- let's catch up a bit! We had a ton of fun last year after I left you on my unintentional blog sabbatical-

We went gallivanting in our favorite orchard with our friends Sam and Lara and baked a loooooot of pies from the apples we brought home 

 

 We had a lot of visitors come to christen our house and explore our city with us

 

And we decorated and celebrated holidays, which was arguably my favorite!!!

 

I can't wait to do more of all of the above this fall & winter and maybe I'll blog about it in real time this time around-- how crazy a concept is that? 

Most of January through now, I have been working like an absolute HOG to brighten up some spaces and bring our house to life, so I'll follow-up with some posts very soon to show you all of the THRILLING things we've accomplished in the last year! It's very exciting and I'm very proud of how everything looks so far. 

 Stay tuned.