Decorating With Color {a dining room story}

On the surface, this story is going to seem like just another presto chango, dining room redo, fresh look on an old dining room, when in reality, it's so much more. Instead, this is a story about a girl, a girl who is trying to learn how living intentionally looks in her everyday life. This is the story about living a life on purpose and how that looks and even relates to home decor. 

There's not anything exceptional about our dining room, it's just like yours- a place to gather for meals with family and friends. But this new walk of mine is causing me to look at all the parts of my life with new eyes. You see, I have this problem of liking for my house to be in order, so much in order that I fear it sucks the life right out of this little house- I'm working on it y'all. I like neatness and cleanliness, which is good and all, but too much is, well, TOO much, you know? For years I've had some type of runner or cloth on my table, it looks nice, and while I don't really  mind if it gets soiled- I probably do mind. Like I said, I'm working on it. So, one afternoon while perusing through the pages of one of my favorite blogs, I saw a photo of her dining table- her stark naked dining table- sitting right there like it was ready for, life.  That empty table just slapped me right in the face I'm telling you, and she had these cool shelves on the wall behind her table with, get this, real stuff,  like sewing and crafting things that might actually be fun- did you hear that? Fun. Not just useless decor that sits and gathers dust, but real life stuff that's cute and colorful all on it's own.

So, after I picked myself up off of the floor, I knew what I had to do. I headed to the basement for a shopping trip- you do that right? I knew that I'd have to totally redo the wall because it had some serious holes in it from all it's previous looks. I spackled and sanded and repainted the whole  wall. It was so worth it though. Then I had a clean slate to work with. Shelves went up with homeschool stuff, board games, supplies for impromptu artwork, some new prints, a real live plant {live anything  is a must in winter}, and a real and intentional dining room was born. I changed out my light to a wire cage light that I'd been saving for just a time as this. 

Then I painted our dining room chairs to some corals, greens, yellows and bird's egg blues, because what's not fun about colored chairs?? And the most important ingredient, an EMPTY  table- an empty table ready for life to happen.

Linking At:

A Stroll Thru Life  Savvy Southern Style  DIY By Design  The Happy Housie  Beyond The Picket Fence  Lambert's Lately  Houseologie  Living Well Spending Less  I Heart Naptime  Miss Mustard Seed  Thoughts From Alice  Cupcakes And Crinoline  Home Remedies Rx  One Krieger Chic