Eating Spaces: Dining Room {Settled In September}

When asking you guys, "

The main response was anything to do with food {click 'comments' to read the insightful conversation} and that's one of the reasons I'm excited to move into the "eating spaces" this week!

Before our ‘borrowed house’, I’d never had a dining room that wasn’t actually a separate room. I was unsure who to set it up to begin with. It almost felt like any way I did the table, it was in the way of something.

Our new home sorta has a separate dining space. It goes from carpet in the living room to tile and the high ceilings drop giving it the appearance of a separate room even though its just wide open {no door way}. I like the feeling of openness it gives, flowing from the kitchen into the living room. I can see every easily from one room to the next making mothering as well as entertaining much easier.

When we moved in, we just brought the necessities. I actually brought in an outdoor table the women had left and served diner to guest on it with lawn chairs one night. When our friends helped us move in, I was still unsure of how best to use this space and the tile patterned lent to set it up either way. I liked the idea of running it long ways as soon as you came in but then that left a big unusable space between the table and bar area of the kitchen.

I am very thankful for a friend with similar taste who suggested I put the table at an angle. I love when things aren’t all straight and boxy! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Lol So, our table is set up ‘sideways’ in the corner of the dining room filling the space well and giving an easy and spacious walk way in the bypass between rooms.

This is what I’ve come up with right now for decorations. I had all of these matching frames in a single line around our dining room in our old house and decided to keep them in our new dining room but I didn’t want to use them in the same way. After playing with them on the dining table, I picked a layout I liked and used the same technic for hanging them as I did for our “collage wall” in the living room.

After adjusting a couple nails because my measurements were off because of my impatience, we got them all up there! I also decided to use the giant red frame {we already had} in here rather than the living room and opted to wait on the clock wall I was hoping to do.

How to Make an Art Display Frame {Settled In September Series} Currently I hooked fishing wire across the back of this frame and anchored with tacks to hold the kids art work that was piling up on the fridge after just a few days of school.

Later, I’d like to get a big print for it. I’ve heard about huge black and white prints {engineer prints} you can get from places like office depot for just a few dollars. That may be my route!

Well, that’s our dining room! Wanna come over for dinner?!?

Where did you get....

Table & {dirty LOL} chairs- JC Penny's ~5 years ago {not a set}
Bench- homemade by my grandparents
Wooden High Chair with plastic tray- Graco from Baby's R Us 5+ years ago
Blue Boaster Seat {we actually have 2}- church giveaway & Goodwill
Red Frames- wooden set from the Goodwill & then spray painted
Black Frames- Wal-Mart umpteen years ago
Red Polka Dotted Frame- Rothacher Special
Giant Red Frame- local Flea Market & then painted {SPRAY}