Before I took the month of August off from blogging, I wrote this post about our first change in the dining room: the gallery wall! At the risk of being repetitive, here is the before and after in case you missed it:

Before

After

Though I didn't blog for a month, I moved right onto the next phase of our dining room makeover - selling our old dining set and purchasing the new!

The table is the Garner Extension table from World Market, and the gun metal chairs are the Remy side chair from Restoration Hardware. When we decided on this table from World Market, I registered to be a 'member', just to get the 10% off coupon. For whatever reason, the cashier gave us 15% off. Didn't ask, didn't look back. At the moment, this table is on sale. Also, the Remy side chair from RH is on sale and is currently the best price for that style chair that could possibly be found, (we made it our mission to find that style as inexpensively as possible). An unbeatable, decent price at RH...guess anything IS possible!

The aqua blue china cabinet is one of my all time favorite pieces that I had the pleasure of refinishing about a year ago. I painted the piece in Duck Egg by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, and spray painted the caging on the doors as well as the hardware in flat black Rustoleum spray paint. Matt built the shelves for the piece since they were MIA when I bought the piece, (used on Craigslist), and I painted those, as well as the inside of the piece, in Duck Egg. The piece is heavily distressed and is such a fun punch of color on our main floor. That piece, and our burlap curtains, (from Simply French Market on Etsy), are the only two things that did not change during our dining room makeover.

I wanted to shake things up with our arm chairs and found these two solid oak chairs on Craigslist at an amazing price:

Before

After

I dry brushed Old White by ASCP using a thick bristle brush, then used fine steel wool to distress the spindles and a fine sanding sponge to distress everywhere else. I love the contrast of these warm distressed oak chairs with the sleek and modern metal chairs.