table hunting.

now that the dining room is all painted, i've restarted my search for the perfect dining room table. i've come close to finding 'the one' in the past, but after a while i always end up falling out of love with whichever one i pick. i'd like it to be wood. but it has to compliment our wood floors without being all matchy-match, but it also can't clash with the chocolate brown on the walls. AND i'd like to have a rug to go under it, which adds a whole new thing to search for at the same time. honestly, it's kind of stressful.

so while i was trolling around the interwebs the other day, i decided to check out a place that is right up the road from our house called Belle Patri. i have literally driven right past this place several times a day for the past year, and i cannot believe i have never gone in before this week. they are a consignment store of sorts that has all sorts of wonderful furniture and accessories - some new, some second hand, and all awesome. they carry a lot of shabby-chic-type of stuff, and everything i saw in the store looked really nice, even if it didn't match the style of our house. they keep their inventory pretty up to date on their website, which is nice if you are looking for something specific, like i was.

i didn't find a dining room table there, but what i did find was a matched set of end tables and a coffee table that caught my eye. they had good lines and were a nice clean white, which i liked since i don't want all my furniture to be as eye-catching as the not-a-credenza. as a bonus, i could get all 3 pieces for half what i would have paid for something similar from IKEA.

so i was understandably bummed when i got there after work and discovered that the end tables had already sold. but the hubs met me there on his way home and assured me that he thinks he can make me some similar end tables if i really really like them. so with a generous 10% discount that the nice lady working there gave us because of some scratches on the top, we bought ourselves a coffee table!

if i had photoshop i might have thought about editing out all that crap on the loveseat. but thats what it looks like. just keepin' it real.

the plan for now is to give it a coat of paint with the same shade of white that we have been using on all the trim throughout the house, since we aren't quite ready to do a full-on makeover of the front room. but Mark has already commented about how much more lived-in the house feels with the new table sitting in the middle of the front room. and it really does help to visualize what that space might eventually look like with the addition of a rug, and a couple chairs, and a fabulous built-in bench/bookcase. it's gonna be awesome! but first we have a pretty long list of other projects to tackle...