Day 10.6: A Tour of the Dining Room. (For my Blog Friends).

Ok. I've recounted the changes by each individual wall in separate posts. But, here it is, wall by wall, all in one place.

This is the short version:
Before:

And now:
And that concludes the short version. If you want to get a cuppa sumpin' and read the longer version below, you're more than welcome to!


The room is 10 feet wide by 11 feet deep with two doorways. Like this:


The dining room is on the left. Top is north. The kitchen is to the south, behind the dining room.
We'll start with the south-east corner, where you can see the two doors: the pine "french door" to the hallway and the doorway to the kitchen.
Before:


After:

Then, to the right: the desk and der wall. The desk is as big as my couch.
I'm so proud of this I could burst.
Before and After:
Continuing to the West wall:
You remember the infrastructure?


You know, my mom actually said she liked it. I guess to her, it looked like a good use of ratty old Ikea. When I set those pine units up in the kitchen temporarily, she liked them there too.
But I think there's no doubt, the grid rules!

My husband just commented that "this" meaning the Expedit, "doesn't stick out as far." Well, I told him, actually, physically, it sticks out farther. "It's the grid." I told him. "Your eye perceives the order and has a place to rest instead of trying to make sense of all that jumble."

And that is why I wanted it. That is why you can pack such a thing as this full--and it doesn't overwhelm. The unit has structure and it imposes order. Voila, rest and peace. (Do I hear a choir of angels singing?)

Moving on....

Then, in the north-east corner we have the china cabinet. It is dark. It's not my favourite piece of furniture, but it was a gift. I was worried when I decided to paint the room a lighter colour that it would stick out too much. It looks so right and so cosy right here.


But then, I reasoned, it just sits on that itty bit of wall. I was willing to live with it Standing Out for a brighter room.

But it's not too bad, is it? Note the table change. I'll get to that in a minute.

I actually took a few pains with the China Cabinet when I unpacked the boxes of stuff that goes into it. Remember those?

I took out some of my scrap paper to line the shelves--and settled on this blue and green just because I had enough sheets in these colours to do the job.
I was absurdly pleased. I'd weeded out a few things when I packed it up, and then I weeded out a few more when I unpacked. Yes, this is edited!


The biggest change to the room, though, took the least effort, and it it isn't something you can really see in the photos. It's the table. I forgot to adjust for the light coming through the window, so my photo of it nestled up to the window didn't turn out.

As I mentioned, once upon a time, we moved the kitchen table to the basement, and the old Ikea pine table, formerly of the dining room, took up residence in the kitchen. To stay. I had planned on painting it white and moving it back in but though it's a tight squeeze, I love having the room to spread out in the kitchen.

But that left us with a problem: no dining table for the dining room. I want to purchase a round table with leaves for this room but I don't want to rush into it. So, for the interim, (which you realise could be ten years!) I brought down another old Ikea table from my daughter's room. As you can see from the photos, it's white. And it has drop down leaves. It has been with me about as long as the desk units! And in about as many apartments. It's what we would call a "stalwart staple" piece of furniture. I only wish it was in better shape. (Note to young people out there: you really can't spend too much money on a versatile piece like this. Truly.)

The day of the photo shoot I sat down in the chair next to the China Cabinet. Just to see what it felt like.

My daughter quickly fashioned a "tea" of coffee, iced tea, chocolate cookies, m&m's and popcorn. I taught her to play Crazy Eights.

That evening, as I wrote up der wall post, my son and husband sat at the table behind me, ate their before bed snacks and read. Last night they played Quatro. This room has now already seen more use by other family members in the last two days than it had seen in ten years. It's amazing what a lot of light and a little space can do!

And so, to finish out tour. The newly re-painted book case between the two doors (also edited and outboxed):
So, in actual fact, this room has a couple of faux pas. (1) All the furniture is pushed against the walls and (2) there's a big empty space in the middle of the room.

We love it.