Our Thrifty Charming Home: 2012

Hope everyone had a really nice and merry Christmas. Finally back with more dinning room posts:

I have been totally in love with Ghost chairs and back in the early summer I spotted a version, they were on sale ($138 a pair, after all coupons, discounts, etc - Originally $289 a pair), I thought and thought about it and since we didn't have the house yet, I consulted it with DBF and his answer was: we need paint, we need a new floor, we need...we need, so reluctantly, I just let it go. After that day, every day I went online to check on the price and to my surprise, they went back to full price by the next day, I almost wanted to cry.

From then on it became a full on obsession, I would check everyday first thing when I opened my eyes in the AM, before getting off bed, and then again last thing before I closed my eyes at night. As much as I loved them, I am not one that would pay full price for anything. It took me a full good 5 months until SURPRISE, I spotted them on sale again, not the same great deal, but after sale and coupons I was able to get it for, well, a couple more $20's per pair, still a good deal, it was black Friday and I was almost sure I will not get the same deal again. Shh, I plan on getting two or four more to have as spare if the deal ever comes back around.

The things I love about the Ghost chairs is that even though they look stylish and "fake" you can sit on them, they look like they will last longer than regular wood chairs, the room doesn't look crowded with furniture, and I promise, they will not break on you, they are supposed to hold up to 1K pounds.

After I purchased the chairs, DFB confessed he has been checking on the chairs almost daily because he knew how disappointed I was.

When we first came to see the house, we did not like the full mirrored wall in the dinning room, the biggest wall in the room looked like it was taken out of a 80's movie; it was discussed to take down first thing when we move in, then as the days passed by I realized that it was really an added bonus, small room + mirrors= Illusion of a bigger room. As you can see in the picture, it actually looks like we have two consoles, two dinning tables, two lamps and two room testers (cats).

And here we go with the thrifty finds:

I found this great piece of furniture at the thrift shop, it is actually a dresser acting as a console, that thing is so heavy my back still hurts from helping DBF to move it from the garage to the dinning room.

The greatness of second hand furniture found at thrift shops is that most of the time you are getting the real deal, wood, years old wood, not what you would find today at the stores.

Below is another great find, the dinning table. I cant not tell you how heavy the table is, and with its solid- curvy legs, beautiful grain, and a $25 price tag... what else could you ask for?

And because no room is complete without accessories:

Candelabra and accent table from Homegoods

The two nicest, cutest accessories in the room, Tino and Piscin.

More Homegoods finds

Tino and his mouse toy, they immediately moved their toys to the only room in the house that is finished

Three more Homegoods finds, lamp, accent table and vase

Piscin, testing the area rug!

My idea of how the room would look - Sneak peek of drawing of the living room in the back

The way it looks now

The room is still missing artwork, crown molding and some other details but that is it with the dinning room for now. We still have 10 rooms to work with!

Thanks for reading,

Sobe

So this is what our dinning room looked like until about a week ago!

Our dinning room before

It took ages to close after we found the house so while playing around I found a great app, Home Design (when it doesn't crash, and you can't also add a second floor which they should fix) which I used to design the rooms in the house, below is a draft of the dinning room:

Draft

And then we started the painting madness:

Valspar midnight

Next was the wall effect... I did not wanted to get involved on installing wall paper, so I decided to make my own stencils and stencil the walls:

Cutting mat + x-acto knife, + mylar (all can be found at craft stores)

I used the same color as the wall, but in a sateen finish and added some Valspar paint crystals to the paint. The effect is that when you walk into the room, you can lightly see the damask in a "silverish" finish, then turn the light on and it sparkles!

Then we the help of DBF (Dear boyfriend), he did it all with his friend. We replaced the existing "chandelier" and medallion with the ones below, a great find back in the summer, where else? A thrift shop!

The medallion was purchased at lowes, it comes in white and then I used two of my favorite DYI products ever, spray primer and spray paint.

But of course, I did not find the chandelier just like that, the way it is today, it took some elbow grease, primer, paint and a summer Sunday afternoon to make it half into what it is today, then I finished with the crystal after DBF installed it.