Dining Room Rehab: Decorating Shelves

As I looked through old pictures of the dining room for this post, I realized that I've never really talked about this corner of the room before. When we toured our castle during the open house, there was an enormous mirror on the wall I am about to show you, that took up most of the empty space. Very Italian. :0) A friend suggested to me the other day that I should start a de-Italianizing business. This house has certainly given me a lot of experience, that's for sure!

Anyways, so here's what this part of the dining room looked like when we bought the house. You can see the huge bolts in the wall where the mirror had been, the dingy white paint and the total lack of character. :-)



My grandfather loves to take all kinds of stuff from friends and sell it for them, and this antique dresser was one of those finds. I don't have much information on it, but it seems that it is at least 100 years old. It doesn't look too bad in the pictures, but the top needs to be replaced, and some serious repair work needs to be done on the whole piece. But I love those curvy drawers in the front, and those massive drawers are great for storage.

This picture is from last fall, and shows the dresser and the two shelves I found for above it. I actually bought the shelves when we still lived in the apartment, because I found them on super clearance at Office Max and I knew I would use them somewhere.  I put a bunch of my cream dish collection on the shelves, as well as some art from Lover's mom and my Willow Tree figurines.



Here are the shelves again, with some Christmas decorations. I never really liked how they looked, but couldn't come up with a better solution.



One of the things I will do when I am totally stuck in my decorating process is to start from scratch. I will clear off all the surfaces, and start over, giving myself permission to use all different things. This is what I ended up with.



The shelves are less cluttered, and now incorporate all of the colors that I've used in the room. It helps them feel much more purposeful. The ultimate test: Lover came home and immediately noticed how much better they looked. :-)



The lower shelf has our Willow Tree from our wedding, the sugar bowl from our dishes, a bit of gold with the mirror and some blue with the hydrangeas.



The upper shelf is very simple, with a print that I love and wooden candlesticks from Africa.



The top of the dresser again incorporates all of the color scheme, with the cream pitcher, hydrangeas, gold frame and the blue lamp (just to the right of where the picture ends.) That old tyme picture of us brings a  lot of laughter, as we have made up an entire story for our friends about how these are our great-great relatives who met, fell madly in love, but were never allowed to be together. :-)





So in the end we've gone from cold, stark and boring, to warm and cozy. This little area makes me smile, I love all of the romantic elements. What makes a home warm and cozy for you?

Tomorrow I'll show you  the two corners that face you when you walk in the room. They each needed only a few small touches, as they share the wall with the freehand art I did a while back.

Can't wait till tomorrow? Read about the lamp makeover and curtain rehab here.

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