Dining Madness

Finally, it's time to show off our dining nook. It's such a small space, but for some reason it has taken me forever to get it all squared away.

Here's what I started with 2 years ago- I think this might have been taken on move in day. A $40 hand me down table and chairs:

And after the great purge of Spring 2011, I sold that table and chairs and moved our desk into the nook:

But for months, we had no chairs. Except for the chair in the back corner- which will make an appearance later.

For our anniversary, Mr. Spice bought me an eco-friendly eucalyptus bench at Cost Plus (romantic, no??). Yet, I couldn't bring myself to spend $40 on one of their cheap feeling seat cushions, so I bought some foam ($20 with a Joann's discount code- foam is expensive, yo) and some fabric at Ikea (which I also used for our couch pillows).

Here she is:

The small pillow is a previous project, I have no idea where I got the fabric or why for that matter. And just so you know, the curtain is also Ikea and from our previous house.

Next, I took some birthday money and splurged ($269) on two recycled metal chairs from Viva Terra (looks like they aren't really on sale any more).

Love these practical metal beauties.

You've already seen this sidewalk beauty revamp:

And to cap it off, I spent another $4 on spray paint and went to town on the one chair we had hiding in the corner. This was my very sad desk chair that I bought in 2003 for Grad School, and what I like to call now- my Color Splash!

I will say that I did not primer this chair, so I/Mr. Spice used an entire can of spray paint on this one chair and it still needs a bit more in some areas.

And before I show off the entire space, here's a look at my 'wedding montage' that I finished a few years ago. If you don't remember (I don't know why you would), I bought and used this frame for our wedding to display the name cards:

Now on display in our kitchen from top to bottom, and left to right: our engagement invite, an engagement pic, our welcome note cards, our RSVP, Wedding Invite, and Save the Date, the ribbon from my wedding bouquet, our signs on our chocolate treats (Save the earth- it's the only planet with chocolate), our rehearsal dinner invite, and a list of all the cupcakes we tasted from Miette).

I love that this one frame holds so many memories.

Ok, without further ado, the whole 6-foot by 4-foot dining nook:

Seating for 6. And yes, we have sat 6 in this small area. I hope to whip up a table runner soon, but really all I am whipping up these days is a baby, so we'll see when that happens.

Overall, we spent just over $400 on all the seating, which isn't so bad, and all of the chairs can (and will be used) in the future when we have a real dining area. Hopefully, we can one day upgrade the table from a desk when we actually have a dining room.

Oh, and since the desk is on wheels, we can easily slide it all in the corner when we aren't using the area:

Until then, do you have a dining nook? Dining room? Eat in Kitchen?