Here we go!  The initial round of dining room updates are complete…

First things first – we had to get rid of the 50 shades of brown!  The majority of the walls were repainted a light gray but we chose to do one full wall and the window bump-out in chalkboard paint.  The chalkboard wall is fun for notes and drawings but when it’s blank I really like the texture it creates on the wall (although I admit that I also loved the inky black before we chalk primed it!).  In our small entryway we decided to go for a shot of color (which is proving to be *so* difficult to photograph properly!).  Tudors Down alerted me to free quarts of paint from Clark & Kensington at Ace Hardware and we happily picked up a quart of Emerald Ice.  The coverage was nice but since we’ve gotten used to using low or no VOC paints we found the “regular” paint smell overwhelming.

Last spring we had our floors refinished and stained a dark walnut.  Old 2 Gold floor refinishing in Grand Rapids did an amazing job and we are so happy with how they turned out!  But it left us with dark wood furniture on top of dark hardwood floors, fading the table into the background.  When I saw this rug on Joss & Main about a month ago I decided it would be the perfect solution.  I loved the graphic pattern and neutral palette.  And even though Mr. Lemon was traveling, I pinned him down to agree ;)  Plus, the price was about half off the link above!  A seriously great price for a 8’x10′ rug.  I was slightly terrified of ordering sight unseen with a no return policy but I searched online for reviews and everything looked good so we just went for it.  And we definitely were not disappointed!  The rug is a medium pile, ridiculously soft and now the table really stands out.

For the windows, we decided to go with a layered shade + curtain look.  I originally looked for matchstick roll up shades but couldn’t find any in a dark brown stain that I liked.  We ended up with a textured fabric shade that gives a similar look.  Over that we layered the ubiquitous Ikea Vivan curtains in white.  You seriously can’t beat these for the price!  Don’t judge me for not hemming them quite yet!  Our previous curtain rods were a bit too ornate for our tastes so we replaced them with simple rods that disappear into the background.

We are really loving how things are coming together!  I’ll be showing how we hung the DIY Map Art next week – I had to make sure everything stayed put before sharing our unorthodox hanging method!

After that, the next step I’d like to tackle is artwork on this very empty wall!

Dining Room Progress:
Inspiration
Before

Sources:
Gray paint – Custom mixed Olympic (I’ve lost the original paint chip somewhere but the numbers are as follows: 101-12, 107-7, 109-.05)
Chalkboard paint – Rustoleum
Green paint – Emerald Ice from Clark and Kensington
Ash Charlotte Rug – Joss & Main
Vivan Curtains – Ikea
Oil Rubbed Bronze Curtain Rods – Project Source from Lowe’s
Fabric Roman Shade – allen + roth at Lowe’s