the hill house: dining room day dreaming

Even though the entertainment center has yet to be built, & the dining room & living room are still connected, I can't help but day dream about pretty dining room ideas.

Here is a look at our current living room/dining room set up:

Once finals are over for G, we plan on building an entertainment center in the middle of this open space where our current (& tiny) t.v. stand is sitting. It will go from floor to ceiling.

Imagine something like this Pottery Barn media unit in white.

Because it will be in the middle, we will have two open doorways on either side with glossy white door frames. The back of the built-in entertainment center will be plain dry wall, to match the rest of the dining room.

Now that you know what will be dividing the two rooms, want to see what I would love to do with our future dining room?!

#1: walls

Today I came across a post on houzz of a dining room that I love!

houzz

While I'm not too crazy about those rose-gold chairs, I love the stripes on the wall! I've been trying to decide what to do with the walls in that room. I've always liked the idea of doing beadboard up the wall like these:

the lettered cottage

better homes & gardens

But after seeing those stripes, I might have changed my mind!

#2: table & chairs

We currently have my grandmother's old table & chairs, & until we save up for a new one we will be using what we have. One day I would love for G to build a farm table similar to the ones at Restoration Hardware or World Market like these pretty things:

restoration hardware

world market

The great thing is, he actually really wants to build a table like this, so it's a win-win!!

But until that day comes, our current table looks like this:

I would like to work on it a bit & possibly paint the base of the table & the four chairs black.

Here is a look at the current chairs:

yes, those are wheels :)

& here is a classic Colonial-style chair painted black:

Here is a table similar to ours with a wooden top & black base:

My parents have a kitchen table & chairs in this style, & I've always liked it.

#3: window treatment

I definitely don't want to keep the orangey-wooden blinds that are currently hanging on the dining room window. I'm not sure exactly what I would like to do for a window treatment in this room, but I do know that I love how John & Sherry, over at Young House Love, did the curtains in their first house! They hung bamboo shades over the windows & then hung sheer white curtains up high, just under the ceiling. I said in a previous post that I like the idea of hanging curtains up high to create a larger looking window.