House Tour - The Dining Room

So, we are now making our way into the dining room. This is how it looked before (going from living room to dining room):

And this is how it looks from that angle now:

And here is the dining room before:

And here is what it looks like now:

The only things I bought for this room were the curtains. They were from World Market and cost $30 a panel. (I do think I would like a new light fixture some day as well.)

Here's a view from the living room looking into the dining room:

The artwork that is on the wall was painted by my children. Ocean did the one on the left, Peace did the middle, Ezra did the one on the right. They painted pieces of tag board (30 cents each), and then I framed them. I had them use paints that matched the color of the curtains, so that way theywould integrate into the room. Total cost of those works of art = less than $5.

Here is a close-up of the paintings:

The dining room had a built-in bookshelf:

We don't own enough books to fill shelves like this, so I had to get creative. I ended up putting pretty much any miscellaneous item we owned onto these bookshelves.

I also wanted to highlight some of our favorite life memories...

Like, this is from when we were in that Davanni's ad. They gave it to us as a thank you:

This is a picture from when Vern and I went to prom together. I never had it framed and displayed before. It would have been cheesey to do this right after we got married, but now that we are in our latter half of our 30's, I think it is cool and kind of retro:

Here is that memory book I did for Peace:

And these Polaroids showcase two of Vern's food challenge attempts:

Here's another angle of the room:

And then this is the door leading into the kitchen (which is what we will cover tomorrow):

That's right, I framed a doorway with curtains. (Has it ever been done before? I don't know. I googled the concept, but didn't find much.) But why not frame a doorway with curtains? ("Why not" is a slogan for an interesting life, after all... and an interesting doorway.)

I liked the idea of having it reflect the curtains from the other side of the room. Remember the theme of reflection within this house? (With all these thoughts on reflection, you'd think we'd have a mirror or two hanging up.) But I also like the idea of thinking of reflection in terms of contemplation... because that is what we did when putting this home together. We thought about who we are, what we love about life, the memories we share... and this is what came out.

Tomorrow... the kitchen.