House Tour :: Dining Room

Our home is called a "split foyer" plan.  It is not a split level.  Rather, the front entrance is in-between the two floors, the main living level and the basement.  The main level is semi-open, in that the dining room and living room are open to one another, seperated only by the ceiling slope and a change in flooring (dining room is hard wood, living room is carpeted).  I hope to share the floor plan and some wide shots of the house some time, but for now, I am sharing the dining room alone.

Let's start with the bookcases, which are from Ikea and you can add on to them, to create longer units.  There are two units here.

The book cases hold some of our favorite objects, as well as books that we think are worth holding on to, at least for now.  You know me, I am a chucker.  In fact, while dusting the shelves in preparation for the photos, I pulled six books out that we are going to pass on to someone else.

Some close ups of the shelves ::

Yes, I know the candles are crooked and I kind of like them like that.

This seems to be our Asian shelf, with a Tangram game, figurines from Korea, and a stone carving from China, a gift from my brother.

A vase that I rescued from my mother-in-law's garage sale, as well as a photo of my dad and me on my wedding day  ::

Note the fish salt and pepper shakers... they are both filled with kosher salt.  If anyone needs pepper, I bring in the pepper mill from the kitchen.  It is more convenient to have two salt shakers for meals where we have company.

One of many, many, many rocks in my geologist-husband's collection  ::

I love this shelf.  The small vials in the wooden case were rock samples from a college laboratory.  I am not sure how they came into our possession, but we'll just say I am pretty sure they are from Purdue.

On the rock sample case are two photos taken by my friend Sarah Cook.  In the next shot, I removed the front photo so you can see the one behind it more clearly.

Sarah, does posting your photos constitute copyright infringement?  ;)

A fabric covered box from Target, holding small family album books.

Some of Dave's fossils are on the silver tray here on the brown shelf  ::

A close up  ::

I have the most interesting husband, no?  Geologist, photographer, drummer, world champion swing dancer. (Uh, kidding on that last one.)

Here's some decent/indecent order for your viewing pleasure.  It is the bottom shelf, hard to see unless you're all up in its grill.  It holds year books and photo albums.  This is about as good as that shelf gets.

Now, the right side of the book case, which holds another one of Dave's interests :  vintage radios  ::

One of my most unusual books lives on that shelf, under the radio.  In case you can't read the title it is called The Pop Up Book of Nightmares," and it was a gift from a colleage upon our mutual graduation with masters degrees in counseling.  And yes, it is a true pop up book.


The white shelf seems to have a lot of baby-themed books  ::

One of my favorite Sarah Cook photos is on this shelf, on the far left of the photo  ::

Here it is.  My boys were 4 years old and 4 months old in this shot.

No trinkets on this one  ::

I picked up this white "B" bookend the last time I was at Ikea  ::

Ah, and another great Sarah Cook photo, behind a piece of Alabama calcite.

Again, no tchotchkes here, just books ::

And, once again on bottom, we have some photo albums, baby books and barely managed chaos.  I straightened the chaos for the photo, I admit.  It is mostly loose photos that need to be saved somewhere.

Okay, back to the wide shot  ::

And now for the last few details....


To the right of the bookcases is an old church pew, salvaged from some church in Chicago.  Dave bought it in Atlanta.  The photo is a close up of a hosta leaf, shot by Dave.

In the center of the dining table lives a little brass owl trivet.  Also, if you have read my blog a few times, surely you have seen the table cloth in about every other photo.  It is from Urban Outfitters.  It is faded, stained and it still has the magic for me.  Love it.  I prefer to cover this table because it was damaged during its first life as a floor model at Pottery Barn.  Maybe some day I will learn how to do a professional paint job on it, because it is a very pretty pedestal table.

On the console table (see the very back of the  wide shot photo, in front of the white blinds) that could serve as a buffet, I have a few favorite things that I previously wrote about here.   I did a bit of rearranging since then.  I am not in love with it, but I do like having these things where I can see them every day.

Doesn't this huge candle and pedestal remind you of a cake?  That's probably why I like it.

The room does not have drapes, though I have an idea for some.  If I end up doing them, I'll be sure to share new photos.  For now, I just love how much natural light comes in.  The dining room is not too fussy, easy to clean and all.  I am not sure if adding drapes will make it fussier.

The paint is Sherwin Williams Special Gray.