This is the way the dining room looked when I last shared it.

I’m happy to say that my check off list is growing shorter!

All of the furniture is painted.

If you missed it, you can see it here and here.

I have made a few tiny changes here and there.

Like changing out the artwork frames from black to gold.

Now, all that’s left are a few of the biggest changes.

Adding new curtains and rug in the breakfast room will make or break this room!

This was the original plan.

One, Emmie Blue fabric for the curtains.

I chose this fabric because not only did I love it, but it had all of the steel blues, navy and light blues that I wanted for the breakfast room’s color scheme.

Two, this rug had all of the colors in the fabric and the furniture.

Three and four were my choices of fabric for the chairs.

I went back and forth over which one I wanted.

Three had all of the blue tones, but four was the co-ordinating fabric shown with my curtain fabric.

After going back and forth for DAYS I decided to hold off ordering the chair seat fabric until I saw the curtains with the rug.

And I am so glad that I did!

Because when the curtain fabric arrived it wasn’t steel blue tones at all!

It had the navy, but the colors that looked like steel blue on-line, in person were really very teal.

While the fabric is absolutely beautiful in person and the quality was great, the color was off just enough that I was just sick about it.

To make matters worse, no returns.

I threw a big pity party for myself for a few days and decided that since this fabric wasn’t cheap and I couldn’t return it, I was just going to have to make it work.

The rug came in a few days later and it was exactly what I had hoped for!

I love the high/low pile and the variation throughout the rug.

Perfect!

The original curtain rods were black in the breakfast room.

I never really liked them, they felt too skinny and small for the room, but they were the only ones I could find to fit that spot at the time.

Fortunately, I had some of my favorite curtain rods left over from the living room.

I LOVE the finials.

They are big and chunky and look like big glass squares.

The only issue with them was that the metal parts  were black too.

Spray paint to the rescue!

( On a side note, I LOVE my spray paint tent. BEST THING EVER!)

Once I had them painted and put up I wondered why I hadn’t thought to do it sooner.

This is the final result so far.

And to be totally honest, it’s not perfect but it’s not bad either.

If I hadn’t been expecting all steel blues, I would be in love with the fabric!

So the hunt for chair fabric continues!

The current chair fabric looks great with the rug.

If a few of them didn’t have a some stains, I might not recover them.

As it stands, they will be this way until I find a fabric to tie in the steel blues, navy and the teal.

The struggle is real my friends…

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I guess decorating is a lot like life.

Some days it’s smooth and easy – other days you hit a few pot holes in the road!

The breakfast room saga continues here at The Castle!

Until next time…..

Don’t forget, if you loved it, be sure to PIN it!

After we finished painting the shelves by the fireplace white, it was time to finish a few more living room projects. First thing on my list? Make new curtains in the living room.

Just a quick recap. This is what our living room windows looked like on the day we took possession of the house.

Sorry about the photo quality, I’m blaming it on being exited about moving in! We had a few hours before the flooring crew was to arrive and start tearing out all of the existing flooring, so I was in a bit of a hurry.

Full disclosure, I have never liked the blinds that came with the house. The front of the house has the prettiest plantation shutters. Which I LOVE. However, the back of the house came with these fabric raise and lower blinds. Don’t get me wrong, these are not inexpensive blinds. They are just 17 years old. 17 years of wear and tear. 17 years of dust and dirt accumulation. I even found a dead mosquito inside one of them. Smack dab in the middle where I couldn’t get it out no matter what I did. I was so done!

One of the first things we did after the new year was to take down the old blinds. Since plantation shutters were not in the budget, we went we these white, 2 1/2 inch slat faux wood blinds. So happy that we did! So much brighter and cleaner. (no mosquitos anywhere!) My only complaint – they no longer have cords. A girl could get carpal tunnel from twisting the blinds open every morning! But they are so much better than the blinds that we took down.

Once we knew we were moving last October, I started looking for fabric to make curtains for the new house. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this fabric.

Which was an exact match to my living room chair! I couldn’t order it fast enough. And then I waited. And waited. Only to be told it was back ordered and it wouldn’t be here til the end of December.

While I was waiting, I started shopping for hardware. Yikes! It’s been a long time since I bought curtain rods that span a lot of windows so I was in sticker shock. The rods were going to cost twice as much as the curtains. Then I found this set at Ross. It had not only one, but two rods sets in the package. And I fell in love with the acrylic finials. Sold!

My fabric finally arrive the end of January, but it was worth the wait. And those finials… I love them!

I’m going to show several angles of the curtains with the new blinds. This is coming down the hall from the master. The curtains are simple lined panels as I didn’t want to do anything too fussy since it has such a bold fabric pattern. 

They look so pretty coming out of the bedroom wing.

However, this is my favorite view – from my spot on the sofa. It’s where I sit every morning and look out at the wonderful view while I drink my tea. Now, my view is even better since it’s framed by these lovely curtains!
Having new living room curtains has really changed and warmed up the look of the living room. So much so, that I can’t wait to finish up the last few items on my living room to do list. Then the living room will be done –  for now!

Until next time…

In my last post I shared with you my plans for refreshing the dining room. If you missed that you can find that here. Today I’m giving you an update on my progress, or rather I should say my problems in the dining room.

It started out so well.

The curtains were cut, sewn and hung in an hour and a half.

At this point, I was thinking I was the queen of the refresh.

Oh, how the might fall!

Next up, I started removing the material on the dining room chairs.

Now, here’s where things went sideways.

I removed the blue material, only to discover that the chairs were not covered in a white material like I thought.

Nope, instead of white, I found a very light gold color.

However, I pushed away my disappointment and consoled myself with the fact that it still looked better than the blue fabric.

Now, here’s where I have admit to my stupidity.

Apparently, when I was recovering the chairs before I took a short cut.

I must admit, that I’m not proud of this one.

Each chair has a cording at the base of the chair seat.

What I should have done is cut the material into strips, wrap it around the cord, then sew closely to the cord .

What I actually did was, instead of sewing it, I hot glued the material strips around the cord.

Actually, that works really great as long as you don’t glue the cord to the material.

However, that method is apparently too time consuming for me.

Apparently, I was so impatient that I just put glue all over the material and wrapped it around the existing cord.

Which leads me to this mess and me looking for new coordinating material to recover the chairs.

I’ve got to many problems in the dining room, so I’m taking a break to think and add some greenery to the living room

Quick fact.

Here in North Texas, in the month of February, out of 29 days, 20 were rainy, overcast or foggy.

It’s that way today. Cold and overcast.

Y’all, I’m going to need some serious light therapy soon.

That and new material for my dining room chairs!

Until next time….