Dining room Update

Here are some of the changes I have made to my dining nook. I haven't had time to shop for new stuff. I decided to dig through some of the things that I have stored in the basement. I thought that maybe I could get creative and come up with something that would work well on my wall. Turns out....not really. I tore a couple of silk flower arrangements apart and tied some of the greenery together for the wall hanging you see here. You might think I was trying to be very artistic. The truth is...I needed something to cover 3 or 4 nail holes I had made when I changed the spacing of my shelves.

The trouble is I haven't had the time to go browsing through stores. I'm from a very small town. The closest store is a Wal-Mart Super Center. I'm not trashing this store, but in our area, when it comes to home decor....Wal-Mart just doesn't cut it. Not because I insist on more high-brow stuff. No, it's because they are limited in the home furnishing/decor department. And what they did have, they are eliminating or down sizing. And it seems the other stuff like canned goods and paper products are being replaced with a white label brand. What's that all about? You would think since they use less ink for the color of their labels, prices would go down. Not so!!!

Anyway, I found a little Mom & Pop store in the old part of town that carries a few Tuscan wall pieces. I bought the two metal plaques that you see on the one side of the mirror and the stone "10 Commandments" plaque you see beside the door. I may change or add to the wall display if I get the chance to spend time browsing in stores outside of town...but if not, I think I may add a rug under the table and replace the globes on the ceiling fan. Then I'm on to re-do the kitchen into a coffee theme.

So what do you think? I need some suggestions just incase I get to leave town for anything other than work. I'll need your help with this. As far as the kitchen....I've been specific of what I want and I have left hints with  Mr. Chat & Chatty for this year's Christmas list. Pretty smart, huh?

New Table

Now what?

SO....my new table was delivered last week. It may be a little too big for my informal dining nook but I like it. The problem...I decorated my wall to match the cheesy little table that was in there for the past 17 years. Now I have to go back to the drawing board to find a look that fits the personality of the new table. My other table was small so I limited the wall decorations so as not to overpower the table. My new table is counter height. Now the table over powers the wall. And it also looks like I hung everything wrong and too uniform. Any suggestions? (PLEASE)

I'm thinking maybe dark brown shelves with cute what-nots on both sides of the mirror. (Or taking the mirror down altogether) Removing the green scarf from over the French doors and replacing with a creamy beige swag. I'm going to take the green cloth (the one that looks blue in this picture) off of the small desk against the wall but leave the lace doily on it. It may even look better if I remove the small desk. I'm hoping that I can leave it there. I don't want to have to store it in the basement because my grandpa made it for me when I was 14 years old. 

Geez!!!!! I'm in need of a decorating tutor! I'm not good at putting a "LOOK" together. I just know what I like when I see it AND this isn't it. It seems all out of kilter and out of whack. For years I had a sterile white house. Oh, it looked clean but it was not cozy at all. We have always planned on selling so I never put a lot of investment into the decor. My thoughts were always, "When we sell this house and get the house we want THEN I will be a decorating fool!" 17 years later, here we are. So, as I've said before I've bitten the bullet and decided to re-do our look. I've started on the living room. I have just a couple more things to do in there before I have the look I want. Once you all help me with ideas here in the dining room, it will be done. I already have ideas for the kitchen. I think we're going to do stone around the bar and back splash. I want to paint the cabinets a darker brown and get a mid to light brown counter top. The cabinet tops will have a coffee theme (maybe coffee cups and old coffee pots displayed on them).

My house needs help. It has about 3 different looks going on. Any suggestions from those of you who have not been putting off showing love to your homes all of these years would deeply be appreciated.