Comfortable, Usable Dining Room Updates: Before and After

A lot has been going on at Melina’s home. We recently completed makeovers of her living room, family room and son’s room…which I am excited about and will show you when I can get better photos (having a problem with that!). But here are the improvements we made to her dining room and foyer.

Love her new expensive looking hurricane lanterns from Pottery Barn and the straw runner from WS Home (I want one too).

Here is the foyer before…

a new circa lantern was installed along with

a larger mirror, RH lamp and West Elm bowl (on sale now) on the demi-lune table.

Their dining room is on the small side. I had to be the bad guy and tell them that it was over-crowded with inherited furniture (so that the table had to be off center).

Also, I understand cats may scratch the table…but “live a little”–take the pad off and use Old English on scratches (adds patina). Then, you will see a pretty table everyday! And guess what? Since Melina is letting her two cute cats outside during the day they haven’t been scratching…that fear influenced a lot of our decorating…more about that later.

We kept the family heirloom table but added more comfortable chairs from Restoration Hardware. The Circa Lighting iron chandelier mimics the arch in the dining room opening…trust me on that since I don’t have a picture… see the arch repeated in the new Ballard iron mirror?

Melina’s husband and friend are my heros for getting that heavy, three piece burden on the wall. They also installed the RH hardware and new curtains. AND it was a super hot day and I didn’t hear any cursing…except under my breath.

Now there is room to move around the table…

just in time for Melina’s husband’s birthday party.