Tag: dining room

Minor but Important

This Saturday we conquered 3 minor but important home improvement projects, two of which safeguarded us against fire hazard and one of which made the dining room better.

Speaking of the dining room. Big stuff going on in there this week. You’ll see.

So, first we did the easy thing.  Until now, the light in the dining room has just been a bulb hanging from a chain. Very depressing. I’d been thinking about getting a paper lantern shade at World Market, but seeing how I haven’t been to World market in months (and even then it was in Kansas City, not closer Wichita) that plan was looking dimmer and dimmer by the day (pun intended). So, plan A went out the window when I saw this nice shade at Target. We just unscrewed the bulb and hung this upside down and screwed the bulb back in. Easy peasy. Not perfect but better than a bare bulb (for another 12+months).

I love the natural fiber look.

Second, we eliminated a fire hazard in our laundry room. I am ashamed to say that we have had the washer and dryer for over 6 months and never addressed this problem. After vacuuming 6 months of lint out from the walls/floors/everything behind the dryer, we installed what I refer to as an elephant trunk:

Nice hole in the wall, right? Not my fault--the place came that way.

We got a fancy one from Lowe’s that goes into a vented container, since it’s impossible to vent to the outdoors. So we’ll just have to remember to empty the container once in a while. The hose leads to what we refer to as “the furnace room” because it’s a weird little room in the hallway of our building with the furnace in it. Which brings me to the next project.

Until Saturday, the furnace room didn’t have a door. Which meant that the whole hallway could hear whether our furnace was running or not (this used to come in handy actually, before it was repaired). There was a door IN the room, just not attached to anything. So we bought some hinges and tried to hang a door. It doesn’t close without being forced, but there’s a door attached now and it’s being held shut by a door stop, so we still count it as a win.

Have any visually unimpressive but necessary projects you haven’t gotten to yet?

Dining Room Inspiration Board

First and foremost, I need to move all of the boxes I’ve stuffed behind the piano into storage.

Then (after payday) I can get Doug on board and we can start in on the dining room! It’s current forest green vibe dosen’t jive with the freshly painted bright yellow living room (although from what I hear it’s quite an upgrade from the red dining room Kellory moved into…).

I’d like to brighten up the paint underneath the chair rail with a lively terra cotta (staying away from getting too far into the pink zone). Everything else we already own so aside from painting and hanging a frame/window/painting collage on one wall, the room will be largely the same.

I forgot to include the dark brown cafe chairs with a teal cushion. So use your imagination--teal will be the accent color...

Improvised Guest Room

Last winter, my mom came to visit me! That’s right, she came to stay in my cold, one-bedroom apartment on purpose. That’s how much she loves me. In order to reciprocate and make her as comfortable as possible, I rearranged my dining room into a makeshift guest room for her. After the photo, there’s a description of my dilemma. Any words of encouragement or ideas will be welcomed with open virtual arms!

Warm and welcoming. You too, can stay here if you don't mind a twin mattress on the floor :) Truthfully, it is an extremely comfortable bed.

I folded down the leaves of my dining room table and shoved it against the wall, covering it with an “attractive” tablecloth and stashing paint cans and storage boxes underneath it. This left most of the room available for the current arrangement.

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Now for the long story. The dining room has been, ever since the wedding, where stuff crawls in, gets “stored” behind the piano and won’t be seen until we move into a larger place with more storage. That said, it’s kind of a catchall room and while I try to make it usable for dining every once in a while (it’s in the name of the room after all), it’s the room we don’t talk about and hope our guests ignore.

This is unfortunate because we have a piano in there, a sweet dining table my aunt brought up from Texas for me, and a useful hutch that came with the apartment (it has been filled to capacity). If I could get rid of all the “extra” stuff it would be a great room.