Dining room dilemma

An interior decorator I am not. In redoing our home from bottom to top when it was purchased five years back, I struggled with design choices throughout the house. In the dining room, however, the necessary design elements seemed relatively simple to resolve. Once paint and flooring were picked, I figured that the room could easily be completed with dining furniture, a light fixture, window treatment and a little art.

For the most part, my theory held true. A minor challenge did present itself early on, after the surface of the drywall was damaged from trying like hell to remove what was possibly the ugliest wallpaper ever produced. That issue was quickly resolved, though, when I followed a friend's suggestion and textured the walls by slathering them with drywall mud. Once dry and painted a pale golden shade, the walls had an interesting stucco-like finish that not only covered the damage but also looked fantastic.


While working on the walls, I pondered flooring and ultimately decided, because the room would see infrequent use, that I would go with a creamy white berber carpet to replace the nastily stained plush I had torn out.

With the walls done and the carpeting ordered, the rest of the space quickly fell into shape. The room had some terrific architectural details, like wide cove molding at the ceiling, chair rails on the walls and louvered French doors, all of which I repainted in a bright white. On a lark, I painted the ceiling a dark rusty red, which turned out to be stunning. I found a black metal chandelier that would go wonderfully in the room and located a few pieces of art to adorn the walls.


While out shopping one day, I stumbled upon some floor to ceiling brocade panels in gorgeous, rich tones that I knew would beautifully frame the room's large picture window, as well as complement the colors already in the room. Finally, I found a set of six traditionally styled Parsons chairs, covered in a not-so-traditional banana leaf weave and stained a golden brown, which were exactly what I had envisioned for the space and, once I dragged them home, looked great in the room.

Thinking back on the process of redecorating the dining room, I am rather amazed at how easily the whole project managed to come together. All the changes made to the room turned out great and I am extremely proud of the result. There is just one tiny little problem...

Yes, that's right, it's five years later and we don't have a damn table in our dining room. I will forego the lengthy explanation as to exactly why this is so because, in the end, the simple fact remains that we do not have a table on which to dine. A fact which, considering the purpose of the room, presents a bit of a dilemma and is a situation that I have sworn must be remedied in the very near future. And so the hunt for a dining room table begins...