Our dining room has been a decorating thorn in my side for quite some time.  When we first moved in the walls were a mauvey-taupe and the dentil crown moulding was painted in shades of green and burgundy (bless the woman, several owners ago, who apparently spent hours upon hours painting it this way…and then bless Mr. Lemon who spent hours upon hours covering it all in fresh white paint!).  The effect was fairly dark, particularly since this room was the original living room of the house and didn’t have overhead lighting!  Over the last six years (!) we’ve painted the room tan, purchased a gorgeous bar, a dark wood dining set, some new green curtains, and for awhile we even had a few photos thrown on the walls (including Mr. Lemon’s favorite…the wedding shrine!).  And we invested in having an overhead light installed – absolutely the best money spent on this room to date.  But after our floors were redone last spring we hesitated to bring much back into the room because have never loved how the room was coming together and it just seemed pointless.  Which currently makes the room a perfect blank slate for events such as our Speakeasy NYE party, but pretty darn boring the other 99% of the time.  And I’m finally totally fed up with it!  Time for an upgrade!  Although this (very, very unfortunately) will not be an overnight or even an over-a-month makeover, the time has come to start Phase I of the dining room overhaul…

First off, the tan is leaving.  We’ll be updating with a pale gray on three of the walls and expanding our chalkboard photo backdrop that Mr. Lemon painted for the Speakeasy party to the entire wall.

via The Urban Electric Co.

Then our green curtains will be leaving as well.  I’m looking for some dark matchstick blinds and  sheer white curtains to create texture and layers.

via Me Oh My

On our longest wall, we’re adding some map art.  The colors in the map should really help give the room some…well…color :)  And we plan to mark where we’ve traveled so I’m excited to get that going, too!

via Toby Fairley (frankly, I love everything about this photo)

And I’m pretending that I might be able to paint something resembling art to put on the chalkboard wall (you can follow my “progress” on Instagram @ThisNestisBest…).

via Swoon Worthy (using real art as inspiration is crazy overwhelming when mine looks more like polka dots at the moment)

For Phase II (whenever that may be), I’d love to add a rug, some sort of a console table or sideboard, a new chandelier and potentially some new chairs.  But, those are the items I’m having more difficulty deciding on and honestly, we’re not quite ready to purchase larger items.  But a girl can dream…and she most certainly can Pin!

Stay tuned for progress!