Chairs!

About three years ago I picked up some chairs at DI for $10 (for 4). I recovered them in red stripey fabric, but now my dining room is headed in a new direction, so they needed a new look. Besides that, the seats were sinking and starting to get uncomfortable. I reinforced and repadded the seats and chose a pretty aqua floral for reupholstering. It's actually a quilt - from Home Goods (TJ Maxx) - so there is a little extra padding in the fabric itself. What do you think?

Garden Planning

After my great gardening experience last summer, I was anxious to get started on things this year. I started planning what I would grow back in January, and just came inside from building a new raised bed -- it will double our garden size from last year. I've been clearing out old bushes to make way for blackberries and raspberries and identified the perfect spot for a strawberry patch yesterday (under 6 inches of fresh snow, then hail).

I've always used an excel spreadsheet to make a little map of my garden plan, but I just discovered a great new tool! Gardener's Supply has an awesome garden planner that goes by the square foot method. It's got cool little pictures that show you how many of each plant go in each square as well as lots of pre-designed garden plans based on your goals (salsa garden, kid's garden, high yield garden, etc.) to make it even easier. This is one of the best (free!) garden planning tools I've found yet, so I just wanted to share. Enjoy!

Room By Room

We've lived in our house for just over a year now, and I'm starting to feel more antsy about getting everything more.... decorated. Just for the record, I'm not a big fan of "stuff" and try to limit my decor to functional items, beautiful artwork, a few treasures from traveling, photos and good books. The first room I've set out to conquer is the dining room. It's already gone through a few changes since we moved in and I have the main pieces in place. Here's what I'm starting with:
The table is a mid-century piece I picked up on sale at my cousin's consignment shop. I love it because it has three leaves, allowing it to expand for large meals with lots of guests. The table top is painted a beautiful tiffany blueish teal and the legs are creamy white. The hutch is one I bought off of craigslist and have been meaning to paint (this will happen this summer, promise). The chairs were 4/$10 at DI and I recovered them with red stripey fabric from IKEA before I got the table. They need to be repadded and recaned, so I'll probably recover them once again in the process. The jute rug (Pier 1) was also a find at my cousin's consignment shop. The blinds are an ivory on linen damask pattern. Also, I have blue and white dishes in the hutch.

Now for the mood boards. I can't quite decide on the color palette, so I made two. I'm starting with a very neutral base and plan to use everything I have, but I want to make a few changes to add a spalsh of color and tie it all together.
The teal/blue room would involve painting the hutch a creamy white, while adding teal beadboard to the back (wouldn't that be pretty with the blue and white dishes?). I'd hang white curtain panels at the windows and sliding door and give the table top a fresh coat of paint to match the beadboard. I'd buy and frame "almond branch" by Van Gogh from allposters.com and hang it on the wall next to the hutch. Also, I would recover the chairs in a blue/teal/white stripe or pattern to match.
In the red room, I'd paint the table top red, find a cool piece of artwork to hang, recover the chairs, but probably in a similar fabric to what they are now, hang Chris Madden checkerboard curtains, and paint the hutch a creamy white.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that I'm planning on doing a family history wall on the wall that currently has three photos on it. It will be similar to this:
I think the color schemes are both good options, but can't really decide. Thoughts?