Dining Room Update

Hey y'all, welcome to the blog! I am so excited to be sharing our dining room update with y'all today. This project started around six to seven months ago and while we're still not completely done, we at least have our furniture and lighting in place, which is the most important because you gotta be able to sit and eat comfortably and you gotta be able to see what you're eating.

So, I've mentioned in previous posts that my husband and I have different design styles and since moving into our home in August of 2023, there have been some times of struggle where we weren't agreeing on certain pieces or certain things we wanted to do with the house. However, the process of finding pieces for our home has improved over the last year or so and I think we're in a place now where we know what the other person would be ok with and what they're definitely not ok with, so it's easier to agree and look for pieces we both will like.

I gotta say though, so far, the dining room has been the easiest space to decorate together. Our dining room inspiration started when we went to Greenfront Furniture in Farmville last Memorial Day. We saw this gorgeous Gabby cabinet that we fell in love with.

The only thing is, the cabinet was just a single, and we'd need at least two to fill the wall we wanted it on. There was a customer there who overheard us talking about needing something bigger and she's like "Hey, I think that cabinet comes in a double, I've seen it before." She couldn't find it online at the time and we even asked the ladies working at Greenfront if they could pull it up in their system and nothing showed up. Since Adrian is persistent, he looked online while we were at lunch and actually found the double Gabby cabinet, but it was a piece that had been discontinued so all the available pieces were way more than what we wanted to spend at different online interior design stores. Fast forward several weeks, Adrian goes to the Greenfront location in Raleigh to pick up the entry way table we found in Farmville. While he's waiting for the moving guys to get the table ready, he's looking around the store and guess what he finds? The double Gabby cabinet! It was fate, we got it for a good price, and we were both so excited we actually found it out in the wild.

On that same Farmville shopping trip to Greenfront, we saw this table and chair setup with this white table and really pretty royal blue chairs. We instantly loved the combo, and I told Adrian I've seen something similar to this on Pinterest and always thought it was pretty, which is shocking for me because I typically like just neutrals. Even though we liked the combo of the two, we weren't a huge fan of the actual table and chairs. We also agreed on wanting the dining space to have a cozy wine lounge vibe, so the chairs had to be a bit oversized, cushiony and with armrests so after you're done eating, you can sit and relax or feel comfortable enough to be in there with a charcuterie board and enjoy a good conversation.

Armed with our design vision, we went to arguably the happiest place on earth for any interior design lover: Furnitureland South in Highpoint, NC. We're lucky it's about an hour and a half from Raleigh, and this place is magical. Any type of furniture and designer you want, they got it. Interior designers all over the country fly themselves and their clients here. It's amazing and if you haven't been, you should definitely check it out.

After several hours of looking around we found a table and chairs we both liked. The table is by American Drew, it's a round table but can be made into an oval table once you insert the leaf. The chairs we chose are by Designmaster Furniture, and they are custom (if you have a specific chair in mind with a color and look you want, you almost always will have to go custom).

This is just a picture of how the table was set up in the showroom, I accidentally deleted the picture I took of the chair sample they had.

Once we settled on the table and chairs, we started looking for a chandelier and a rug. Since we splurged more on our furniture pieces, I thought getting a rug at HomeGoods would work just fine because they have nice rugs, and you cannot beat the price. We got lucky because we found this rug on our first trip to HomeGoods. The chandelier, however, took a bit more time to find. Adrian started leaning more towards a modern light fixture when we were out and about looking at lighting and it was just hard for us to find something we both agreed on. One weekend we went to a store called Nest here in Raleigh and Adrian immediately saw this light fixture and loved it. I was shook because the light fixture is definitely more my style, so I was just surprised he loved it so much. My only concern with the chandelier is that it would be too big because this thing is massive. But we decided to risk it because 1. we both loved it and 2. this piece was on clearance for like half the price, so it was an amazing deal. Thank God it worked in our space, and it makes quite the statement.

We still have a few more things we want to do in this room; curtains and a nice curtain rod, purchase a few more candlesticks for the table and collect a few more serve ware pieces to display in the cabinet. We're also looking around for whatever we can hang on that big blank wall, and we eventually want to add a little something to the ceiling in here, either some wallpaper or faux beam type of situation, we're not sure yet.

So, that's it for now! Something to keep in mind when designing your own home, that this takes time. We started this process Memorial Day weekend of 2024, and we had this space usable by January of 2025, so it's been a good six to seven months of acquiring these pieces and we still have more work to do. I really do believe that designing and creating your home is more about the journey than the destination. There will always be more you want to do, but when you take your time to curate a space with intention and choose pieces that are collected over time or over travels together, it makes it so much better and more meaningful.