Happy Summer

The many faces of our Dining Room

In 2006 our dining room was builder's beige. Since then it has changed, many times...

May 2013

As you can see the white lovefest is still going strong.
Read more about The Queen of Hearts with The Mona Lisa Smile here.

More dining room changes

This is William enjoying our new dining room rug.

And this is the wall William was looking at before he fell asleep. The Ledge was a quick (1 day for building, 1 day for painting) and easy (thanks to my mitre saw) project, via Ana White.

The Queen of Hearts with The Mona Lisa Smile

 

Yesterday I finished The Queen of Hearts with The Mona Lisa Smile.
She is 4'X6', weighs just under 100lbs (give or take some) and is a nice example of Pique Assiette - made with white and grey vitreous glass tiles (hand cut into 1/6" tesserae), clear acrylic beads (of various shapes and sizes), crystal and grey glass seed beads, plumbing chain, washers, bolts, decorative trim, antique broaches and chained crystal rhinestone.
Our dining room/table has been my makeshift studio for the past 7 months. I'm very happy that The Queen of Hearts with The Mona Lisa Smile is finished and Marathon Man is very happy that we have The Sunday dinner table back:).
Now it's on to The Poppy Field.

Detail

Making The Paper Clip Chandelier

I'm really enjoying our new chandelier. This is how it was made.

Viewed from underneath.

What to do with 14,700 paper clips?

I never really liked our dining room chandelier. I don't remember putting a lot of thought into it's purchase. With that said, it was time for a change. It wasn't in the budget to purchase a new light so I embellished the one we had. I wanted something different...something shiny and elegant...something with a wow factor...all without spending a lot of money...hmmm...
1 paper clip is shiny and inexpensive.
14,700 paper clips are shiny, inexpensive* and elegant. *1 box of 1000 paper clips from Staples $3.86 X 15 boxes = $57.90:)

I'm now liking our dining room chandelier and wowed that it actually turned out better then I imagined (it doesn't always work that way:)

Big is good

Its been a busy couple of months at mosaicworks. I made a record number of mirrors (some very big) in an unusually short amount of time. Some were hard to say goodbye to. This was one of them. It was a custom order, through 1212, for a front hall. The design is from my Glam Series. It measured 36"x62" and weighed 50lbs. Before being delivered I put it in our dining room. It fit in nicely and added a well needed punch to the space. I loved how the ceiling seemed higher and the room felt grandeur. I wanted it to stay there...unfortunately it wasn't made for our dining room...
I've added make big mirror for dining room to the 2012 to do list.

The Unexpected Makeover

We had no intention of giving our dining room and office a makeover last week but as it seems to be in life it just sort of happened?
It all started with a casual Saturday afternoon visit to our neighbours newly opened flooring store, Monster Flooring. Which lead to...

Sunday: drove up to cottage for a couple of days, decided enroute to put hardwood down in dining room and office (2 rooms connected by a pocket door).
Monday: ordered hardwood flooring from Monster Flooring, Friday installation arranged.
Wednesday afternoon: drove back from cottage (without kids - enabling us to work at warp speed), moved furniture out of dining room and office, pulled up old white carpet.
Wednesday night: carpet removed, took well deserved (sweaty) Chinese food break.
Thursday morning: disposed of old white carpet (2 kids, 2 dogs - it was more then ready for the dump). Started painting black Ikea bookcase Benjamin Moore's 'Escarpment Grey' (same colour office walls would soon be).
Thursday afternoon: purchased new blinds for office (Blinds To Go). The paper blinds had served their purpose (4 years later?). I was actually starting to get used to them (how scary is that?)
Our unexpected makeover was unexpectedly snowballing...
Friday morning: hardwood started going down:)
Friday afternoon: hardwood installed, started painting first coat of Grey in office (had already painted dining room same colour in April).
Friday night: finished first coat, put second coat on Ikea bookcase.
Saturday morning: painted second coat in office, picked up and installed new blinds, moved furniture back. Unexpected Makeover complete.
Saturday afternoon: drove back up to cottage to get girls and for some well deserved R&R! It was crazy but worth it. I can now officially take 'hardwood flooring in dining room/office' off The Wish list - yeah!

Thank you Monster Flooring. Our new hardwood looks fabulous. And thank you Marathon Man for letting me boss you around for 4 days:)
P.S. I noticed that my old fat Mac is showing it's age. A new Mac is on The Wish list.

Let's try this again...an 'After the After'

Clearly the changes that I made to my dining room weren't cutting it. I had to do what I'm now calling an 'After the After'.
It would be an easy fix! (she said in a state of panic).
I took the gallery montage down (you were right Mom, it was too heavy looking), filled the nail holes, painted the wall again, painted the little black Ikea chairs grey, painted the black credenza white, bought some new lamps (always the fun part) and started making a 36" gray shag mirror (which will be stunning). In the interim I've put one of my white ones up.
Like I said, an easy fix (lol). I feel much better now that things are moving in the right direction. Now I can relax and dream about the new chairs and the hardwood floors.

When you're not happy with 'The After'

Our red dining room was looking tired. Time for a makeover...but what started as a makeover has turned into a 'makeover in progress' (damn). Things just aren't there yet...
What I like: I'm enjoying the gallery wall because each piece is special to us in some way. I'm digging the grey curtain panels because they were on clearance at Bouclairs for only $17.99 (always a factor). And I'm loving the grey walls because grey is my new favourite paint colour. This grey is called 'escarpment' from Benjamin Moore (the only paint I use). It's clean and fresh and seems to go with any colour.
What still needs to happen: I'd like hard wood floors (it will happen). I'd like some new chairs (why didn't I notice that there's too much black furniture going on before?) and I'd like to see a couple of my mirrors (grey shag, round) on either side of the french doors - I'll get on that tomorrow. So stayed tuned...