Last you heard about the dining room, we had a curtain panel that went MIA, no rug and a hutch that we relocated.  Now the room is inching toward completion and I am loving it.  This was the before if you recall….

And since that time, I purchased a new rug and I am so glad that I pulled the trigger because we have eaten in there already several times and it has been great.  The last rug did not survive Bear’s housebreaking period so we had to toss it….but this time around, I made some smarter parameters on what exactly I needed.

The rug needed to go with our foyer rug which is blue and brown and creamy tan.  It is definitely more traditional in style but also it hides dirt well.  I felt like it was good for the rug to be lighter because the table is dark, the hutch and the floor and even the upper part of the walls – all dark.  The lighter rug would make this room feel brighter.  But the problem with light rugs is that they stain and show all the things…..not really a great fit for a dining room where kids could accidentally drop food (at.every.meal.).  So it needed to be easy to clean.  That means that I would need something synthetic that I could use my carpet shampooer on.  (I love my carpet shampooer by the way….like OBSESSED.)

SOooooo here is the list of the things I wanted in a rug….

• lighter color that would go with cool tones and warm tones
• traditional design that would play nicely with neighboring foyer rug
• synthetic material that I could wash
• large 9×12 size
• affordable….like under $300

And I found all of that in a rug from Overstock!  Its call the Adirondack Vintage Distressed rug and I got it for a heck of a price….

CLICK HERE FOR THE RUG LINK

 

It’s not thick like a wool rug and is 100% polypropylene which makes it very easy to clean.  I still haven’t gotten a rug pad because I was nervous that making extra plush would make it harder to settle.  When it arrived, the first thing I did was make sure it didn’t clash with the foyer rug and I think that even RIGHT ON TOP of the neighboring rug, it still looked just a smidge warm enough to go.

I have the best little helpers 🙂

And here it is in all it’s glory.

I will warn you that at first the rug had a couple small wrinkles on the back side that took about 3 weeks to settle down but since then, I have not had any issues.

The colors are spot on with what I wanted.  It goes perfectly with the grays I have going on but isn’t toooo stark.

Here is a better view of how it is a blend of warm and cool.  It’s a perfect middle-of-the-road neutral rug.

And since I have mercury glass pendants in here that tend to be that same balance of warm and cool and light and bright – it works GREAT.

Also – you may have noticed that I moved my engineer print word art to flank the hutch.

It used to be on the wall at the end of the table but after I decided I wanted art on the hutch wall – I really couldn’t bring myself to part with the word art.  SOooo instead of doing art, I did these instead and I love them!

They are very neutral (not seasonal at all) and all we had to do was remove the sconces (I didn’t like them anyway!) and put a plate over the box.  Then the frames hung over the plates and nobody has to know what is lurking beneath 🙂

I also found the MIA curtain panel.  It went rogue in our linen closet and I did a big donation clean up of the stuff I had in there.  It’s amazing what you find when you organize!

By moving the artwork though I was left with this big blank wall and I can not wait to show you what I did with it!  It’s possibly my most favorite seasonal decor ever.

So there you have it folks!  A little dining room update that makes us SOOOOO close to the finish line.  This will definitely be a fun space to see morph over the holidays since it’s very close to being done!

And because I know I will get this question a lot – here are the links to all the things:

• my chairs are the color GRAY and they are on sale right now!
• my table is from a salvage place and so here is a similar one
• the hutch is from Restoration Hardware and they no longer make it
• the lights are very old (here is the post about them)
• the white flowers in the summer centerpiece are from here (on sale!)
• my wall color is Secret by Benjamin Moore
• the buffalo plaid table runner is linked here
• here is the rug link again

 

P.S.  I made my own Amazon list of favorites for home decor!  A lot of you guys have been asking me for this and I finally took the time to transfer my own wish list items to a public list for you all to see.  Here is the link if you want to check it out!