The glowing dining room

During our time off over the holidays, I finally got around to painting our dining room. I had started playing around with colors over Thanksgiving weekend, and it took me this long to decide!

Initially I wanted to do something dark and dramatic, sort of like this dining room by Bryn.

But after seeing the large swatches of several dark blues & purples on the wall, we realized that a dark color might take away some of the bright open flow of our living room/kitchen/dining room (which all kind of make up one big L-shaped room). We didn't want to take the risk of losing one drop of our brightness - the sunshine we get here, and the mood it creates, is one of our favorite things about our home!

So, we decided to embrace the brightness and go GOLD! In my search for the perfect gold/yellow, I was trying to describe what I was looking for and my friend Girlie summed it up perfectly - Moroccan yellow! (when is Moroccan not the right answer for me? :)) Seriously though, Girlie's input helped me narrow down my sea of yellows (thanks Girlie!). I needed something that would glow in our sunshine just like it would under the moroccan sun.

Big swatches were painted on the wall once again to be pondered and analyzed at all hours of the day (with visitors asking, what's going on here - is it blue or is it yellow??). :) A decision was made...

In case you forgot or are unfamiliar, here's what it looked like before...

with our fabulous tablecloth from Mexico

And here it is now!

this beautiful runner is from thailand

New paint color meant new artwork arrangements, which I really had fun with. Ideally, I would like to have a huuuuuge mirror on the main wall of the room (on the right in the above pictures), but lacking the budget, I took different collections of small sunburst mirrors from other areas of the house and moved them here. The mosaic sconces are new - they were actually 'holiday' items at Cost Plus, marked 50% off (about $6 each) - love a bargain! The way the lights reflects when the candles are lit is really pretty. I'm a sucker for candles. I love them.

One thing I'm very excited about is how the bottom sunburst mirrors on each side actually hide electric outlets on the wall. I'd been wondering pretty much since we moved in how best to hide them (floating in the middle of our dining room wall!), and am VERY excited about this solution.

Below is a close-up so you can see what I'm talking about - you can actually still see a bit of the outlet plate on the bottom left, but I don't mind. I might find a larger mirror at some point which would cover the whole thing... but for now, this works! (I'm intentionally showing you this imperfect solution in an effort to counteract my perfectionism. It's therapeutic for me to show you this - helps me embrace it and realize that imperfect is actually okay! :))

And one last shot of our wall of mirrors...

It glows!

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El Mercado Treasures

I mentioned previously that we shopped and bartered and brought home some goodies from the market during our recent trip to Mexico. It's time to give you the scoop on all of our lovely, colorful finds!

This beautiful tablecloth definitely brightens our dining room! It's some kind of a linen blend - perfect for summer. I love this mix of blue and pink... and of course the moroccan lantern tops it off!

choices, choices!!

Pottery!

Good thing my husband was there to help narrow down the choices - I was paralyzed by the beautiful selection, and may have been there all day without him. :) I'm so happy with our final selections...

these little guys are gifts for friends and family

some of the bowls include a painted design inside AND out

And the pitcher, which I've shared before but believe is worth another look. :) This lovely piece involved some serious bartering - not that we were being difficult, but just couldn't decide whether the price was worth it... but in the end I couldn't walk away without it! Good decision. :)

I've long admired these mirrors (I'm not sure what they're called - anyone know?), and was so overwhelmed at this store, where the walls were covered with these and other gorgeous pottery - I could have spent an entire day drooling over the choices! How I would love a giant one (for over our kitchen sink), but couldn't quite figure out a practical way to get it home with us, so settled for this size (for now)! Haven't yet decided where its home will be....

The next treasures have a special little story behind them. We were in Michigan visiting our families the week before we went to Mexico, and I spotted this artwork at our favorite restaurant (you must go if ever in Grand Rapids!).

I was so inspired, I had to take a picture!

Little did I know that I would find the very same paintings at the market a week later....

I am sooooooo excited about these. My plan is to use them as the new inspiration for our living room. Matted and framed, above the couch, and with new cushions to complement.

By the way, does anyone know what these types of paintings are called? I'd love to find an online source.

In addition to pottery, my hope was to find a purse/bag for everyday use. Without a specific idea in mind about what I was looking for, I only knew it had to make a statement, and was pretty sure I'd know when I found it... and I did! (okay, there may have been a little indecision going on, but mostly due to limited time and the many, many beautiful options!) So much to love: rich colors, perfect size, great strap length, handy pocket on the outside... and it's just so darn cute!

p.s. What I didn't mention is that we had quite the adventure finding our way to the market... we got directions from some other guests at our hotel which sounded very simple and straightforward, but turned out to be rather confusing and led us on an interesting little tour of Cancun! We ended up seeing much more of the city than we ever expected, and almost gave up on the market... I'm sure glad we didn't! When we finally found it, we had about 20 minutes to shop (before the rental car was due back), but my very sweet husband may have allowed me to stretch that just a bit. :) What a day!

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Moroccan Lantern

Here I am, happily cozy on my day off, relaxing on the couch and enjoying blinding sunshine one moment; rain/hail the next on this day of strange weather in San Francisco. Most surprising is that I'm feeling equally inspired by both extremes of weather! (i'm usually anything but inspired by rain!)

For my first post, I'll cover our recent light fixture project. Our house came with brand new and perfectly nice ceiling light fixtures, but they're nothing I would have picked out, and do nothing for the space. The first one to go was in the dining room.

Back in a 2007 issue of Domino, designer Schuyler Samperton's dining room was featured (photo above). SO much to love about this room - saris as curtains, layers on the table and floor... but most of all -- the perfect moroccan lantern. (this link is the source but not the exact lantern.) I FELL IN LOVE, and could hardly wait for the day when I could have my very own - if much more affordable - version.

Mission accomplished last month on ebay, and for only $36! (after several additional supplies which were required for installation, total cost was around $50 -- still a steal as far as I'm concerned!)

After removing the old fixture, a trip to Lowe's helped us gather the materials needed to wire and attach the new lantern to the ceiling (cord, chain, ceiling mount).

So, enough of the story - let's get to the pictures! Here's a 'before' picture (with some of the lovely friends who joined us for Thanksgiving last year). See what I mean? It gets lost above the table, and has no character to speak of. Moving on....

The new, beautiful Moroccan lantern in its place:


some close-ups:


Check out the pattern created by the light on the ceiling - love it!

I'm sooooo happy with our new light fixture, and now even MORE inspired to replace the other two like it (one in the kitchen, one in living room).

I need to give my husband much of the credit for this project, since he was the one to actually remove the old fixture, handle the wiring, chain, etc. Thanks sweetie!

The dining room is far from finished - among my many goals are new chairs, a beautiful paint color on the walls, a curtain to cover the bathroom doorway ... the list goes on. However, there also are many, many other projects which are likely to rise the the surface first ... so you likely won't see this room again for awhile! Let me know what you think about our lovely lantern. :)

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