I finally found my dining room set for this house! It only took three years (sort of like the time in between posts on this blog), but these things take time, you know. It's not like I wasn't looking.

I liked the farmhouse table when I bought it. I needed a table, it was the right price, and I lived in a farmhouse. It seemed to fit pretty well, and has served its purpose. But it's not working for me here at 43. The look is all wrong, the chairs seem huge and after 10 years, I'm just tired of it. Here it is, staged for sale at the farmhouse.

and here it is in this home:

Meh.

I've spent all this time searching for a pedestal table and chairs. Something that suggests French or English country. Retail stores all have beautiful things, but pieces now are scaled for larger modern homes, and I am living in my little person's 30's home. I would like to at least maintain the illusion of spaciousness, and so I've been frustrated in my search. Additionally, I wanted something round (plus 5 difficulty) and something that looked antique, but not overtly so--you know, faux-distressed tops and all that.

I also couldn't bring myself to plop down the 3 grand this whole thing was likely to run. Granted, I'd have it for life, but I want to travel and go out to eat and do other things with my money instead of walking around it on my way to the kitchen to get the rice and beans I'd be eating for a while.

So this week, the sun came out, the skies opened and in one of my favorite haunts, I found this:

I looked at it several times, then just decided what the heck. It was such a great price, if I hated it I could just resell it later. It's not a pedestal, but too bad. There are a few nicks and dings, but overall the condition suggests it was well taken care of and lived in a house without children or pets. Or at least not the kind of children or pets that chew on things.

I spent the week searching for fabric for the seats because the slubby, gold threaded whatever nightmare the last owner had on there was not going to work. I thought I would see what the original seat covers were as inspiration. The answer: one of FOUR fabrics.
All of these were the original layer. I covered over them so that the next person can have as much fun as I did wondering how many times these chairs had been recovered. This also suggests they may not have originally been a set, but thinking about that will blow my mind.

So there were many choices for me (not really, there's only two places here that carry fabric any more) and there's so much pattern and texture already going on in that room and the adjacent living room. Some of the finalists:Now, shake all those together with these:

Pretty challenging.

In the end, I went with the red ticking. It's simple and colorful without competing with those krazy kurtains.

So after an afternoon of nail pulling, stapling and blistering, I present the finished product.

I love love love this. And the whole thing, table with leaf, 6 chairs, those fancy fold-out pads to protect the top and replacement fabric came in under $450. There's plenty of money left to sit down and have a nice glass of champagne. Cheers, y'all!