Dining Room Discussions

When we bought our home in 2013, I was so excited to have a "formal" dining room. This special space is where we host Christmas every year, have cute little tea and dinner parties with dear friends and, more recently, where I wrote my entire Master's Thesis. My husband wanted a traditional rectangular dining room table where as I was aiming to get a round table with a mirrored base and over the top tufted chairs. Due to room dimensions, we went with a rectangular table that we both fell in love with at Ashley Furniture. I would consider it a transitional piece, being that the chairs are upholstered and it's a deep wood but the structure lines are very clean and sleek. 

The stenciled accent wall was done about 2 years ago with a moroccan tile wall stencil. Check out the link ^ for details. 

Lately, I have been seeing bar carts all over the web. One of the most popular is the Ikea Bar Cart Hack... 

This is such a cost effective way to scoop up a bar cart! Check out more details here. 

Something I try very hard to avoid is over crowding a space. Too many pieces of furniture mixed with zillions of pretty little things gives me a headache! The eye can't focus and the space is no longer enjoyable. In an effort to avoid this all together, I decided to create a "bar tray" instead of a bar cart. I used all of the things I already had to assemble. 

Colorful straws don't need to be hiding in a drawer. Stick them in a glass for a fun pop of color.

We love to entertain so our liquor collection has grown over the years. I decided to keep the bottles that get the most use out on the tray. Some of these items are things we don't even drink but our family does so we always keep them in stock. I also made decisions based on balance and height. Although this is something we use, it still needs to look esthetically pleasing to the eye. 

There is no need to keep the colorful martini glasses hiding in the cabinet. Let them free for the world to see!!!

The bar tray lives on our dining room server. At one point, this sucker was piled with little things here and there but for now, less is more. 

Like our entire house, this room has changed so much since we bought almost 3 years ago. I snapped a few more pictures to share the most recent updates. A majority of the purchases came from HomeGoods.

Here is a shot from the stairs. It's meshed into one, long space. I love the open concept. 

I just put that hot pink knob on the end table. It's dreamy!!!! Find a comparable one here at Hobby Lobby. #color #color #morecolor

That chaise lounge is one of my most treasured purchases. After months of hunting for a chaise and being discouraged at the prices, I found this beauty at Bobs Discount Furniture for only $199. Does it get any better? AND it's comfortable, too! Check it out here. It comes in both grey and cream.

Griffin was keeping guard while I was snapping pictures this afternoon. 

Thank you for checking out today's post!!! Hope I have inspired you to be more decisive about your decor!!!! 

xoxo

Cyndi