One more room almost done!

I never thought much of dining rooms, but now that ours is on it's way to being finished, I'm starting to change my mind.  Here's a peek at our semi-finished formal dining room:

 

 

We took our old espresso wood dining set that we bought from Home Comfort several years ago, and tweaked it a little by adding custom upholstered benches from Ballard designs.  It ended up giving a bit of an eclectic edge that made me fall in love with it all over again:)

 

The rug, which I was initially unsure about, is actually from one of Rugs USA's big 75% off sales.  I picked it up online for a whopping $150, and now that it's in the room it works with our pillows without being too matchy-matchy.  The pillows are from Etsy (of course!), and were originally destined for one of our guest rooms.  They didn't work in there, so I ended up using them in the dining room.....it ended up being a happy accident in the end.

 

We inherited these lamps from my husband's late father..... I cleaned them up and got them working again, and how they are both beautiful and sentimental.  The lampshades were $10 at Garden Ridge, and all I did was spray paint them with Rustoleum's Glossy navy blue, and voila!  (Have I mentioned before how much I love spray paint?)

This silver plated trophy that we are using to hold flowers was our first purchase after we moved to Charlotte.  We went to this big antique flea market one weekend, and found a vendor that had all sorts of sterling silver and silver-plated goodies.  I fell in love with this one, and my hubby negotiated it down for an awesome price.

 

Our makeshift bar is from Lee Lighting, and I was super excited that we found it on sale.  I can't wait to accessorize it.

Our console/buffet is actually 2 Ikea Expedit series bookcases on their sides, stacked on top of each other.  We had one mounted floating on a wall at our old place, but we were too scared to try the same technique on our plaster walls.  My husband came up with the idea of buying another one and just stacking them to give us more storage.  Not too shabby for a guy, right?  We are ordering doors for the cubbies, and will be adding wood fretwork to them to give it a custom look.  More pics to come of that.....whenever I get around to it!

 

The mirror above our buffet is something I found at Carolina Pottery.  It was a weird grayish-bronze metal color, so I just spray painted it with several different tones of gold spray paint.  I like it much better now.  I think I've developed an addiction for these types of mirrors now! lol

We got really lucky since all the sconces and chandeliers came with the house, and I think they fit perfectly.

Our dining room is right next to our kitchen, so we have been using it a lot more than I thought.  We can't wait to have our first dinner party so we can have a full table!

Navy & white for one of our guest rooms?

So it's official.  We move to Charlotte the third week and October!!  House hunting starts next weekend, and hopefully we can find the perfect 3-4 bedroom place in the Myers Park and surround uptown neighborhoods.  **Fingers crossed!**

 

I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about the whole moving thing, but I am trying to focus on how exciting it's going to be to decorate an entire new space.  :)  Right now, all we have is a master, and open floor plan kitchen/dining/living.  So that means there will be a lot of work for me to do decorating our new place!

 

I'm trying to come up with guest bedroom color schemes, and Navy and White is one of the looks that I have on my mind.  I'm thinking maybe taupe walls (NOT navy paint), with mostly white linens, and touches of graphic navy patterns, and Gold accents.

Very cool rug in this one.  I'm trying to hunt for a cool patterened rug as my inspiration.

I like the balance of the navy/white in this one:

YES to mixing patterns! Maybe not this much, but still.

 

And here is ANOTHER thing I'm torn about... I think that I want one guest room to have a QUEEN bed, and maybe the other one to have TWO TWIN beds.... thoughts???  (Obviously, two totally different design themes)

Love the greek key detailing......  but I only like to use it in small quantities!

The headboard is cool, but I'm leaning more towards painted metal/wrought iron.

I'm also on the hunt to find something that I can DIY to replicate the mirror like this....

 

I love horizontal wide-striped drapes (maybe a little thicker stripes than this) against taupe walls.  I think a few graphic pillows against crisp white linens would be pretty.

The throw might be a little much, but it is SERIOUSLY hard to find a decent navy and white throw that isn't $200.

I'll keep you updated as my design process progresses and as I collect things for my new space... wish me luck!