Monday, May 21, 2018

Dining room: the buffet wall and Bessie the cow

The back wall of the dining room has gone through a number of iterations since we moved in.

I started with a campaign dresser from Pottery Barn Kids.


If it had been twice the size I think I probably would have liked it, but the 56 inch piece was just too small on that wall.  The white dresser with the white Ikea bookshelves against the dirty cream walls was just....boring. I was also not impressed with the quality of the piece considering how much I paid for it. The interior of the drawers were unfinished wood, and they didn't pull in and out smoothly.  For as much money as I spent on it, I wasn't going to keep it if I wasn't happy with it, so we returned it.

FYI, in the event that you are looking for a white campaign dresser, Home Depot has one for less than half the price.  I cannot speak to the quality, as I've never seen it in person, but that was one of the things that made me return the first piece.

While I was hunting for another piece, I put the Ikea Tarva dresser we already owned there for a while, with some art we found at a thrift store.  The art is a weird lenticular piece, with two sets of eyes that appear to move if viewed from different sides.  This wall can be seen from the street if the drapes are open, so for a while we were the house with the giant lady in the window.


I had some requirements for the buffet piece.  I wanted drawers to hold our junk, so that took out most buffet pieces with doors.  I wanted the piece raised up a bit, as there is a vent in the wall I did not want to block. I wanted it to be at least 75 inches long.

After buying our living room sofa, I had a few hundred dollars worth of reward points and a 20% off coupon to Crate and Barrel, so I ended up buying the CB2 Crawford dresser, which was on back order forever.  They rescheduled delivery four times.  It finally showed up...and it was a bit dark and one drawer won't stay shut.  But it was long and had drawers, so I was hemming and hawing on keeping it.


Since we were having the first floor painted, our painter agreed to paint the just the metal frame for a nominal price.


In another "its too dark" moment, I started with our blue splatter painting on the side wall.  It looked fine, and originally I was looking for a red/white/blue color scheme in this room.


Unfortunately, this led to a big struggle when looking for other art and lamps on the buffet wall.  Nothing looked good or played well with the splatter painting.

I finally settled on putting a large round mirror in on that wall.  I'm happy with the size of the  mirror, but it also turned out to be a bit dark, so I am debating painting it gold.  (It can't be returned.)


In the above picture I tried the tall white lamps that we already owned.  I also tried that blue lamp from Pier 1, which wasn't big enough and arrived damaged.

I bought these red lamps, which ended up in the parlor.  Too much red with the rug.


I bought these supposedly cobalt blue lamps from Wayfair, which although they were a massive 34 inches, weren't the right blue and....eh, just didn't feel right. Too square.  Too many pointy angles in this room.


I loved these turquoise gourd lamps from Wayfair, but turquoise did not go with the navy art, so I just put them in my cart and looked at them every day for months, wondering where I could put them.

An aside--I loved turqoise for a long time--like 2004-2010...and then I hated it for a while.  It was everywhere, I am so sick of the spa look (still am), and eh, I just wanted it to go away. I've been in a red+white+cobalt blue phase for about five years now.  But....turquoise is making a comeback in my heart.  Obviously.  Since I just filled my dining room and a bit of my parlor with it.


One day I had an epiphany.  I will move the navy art to another room, I will buy turquoise art, the lamps will play nicely with the turquoise in the rug, and then the turquoise lamps will go nicely in the room!

Thank heavens I bought these lamps. I really love them--they are so hefty and large, and they are a beautiful pearly finish, and now they are discontinued! They sold out once while I had them in my cart.  When they came back in stock I bought them.  (They come in white and gray, also, but the turquoise appears to be discontinued.)

Problem solved! The blue splatter art moved into J's room, and plays very nicely with some orange accents in that room.  That left me with very little budget to find a large turquoise art piece for the dining room.

Have I discussed my love of cow paintings here?  It began a few years ago with this etsy shop called Roz Art.  I would love to buy a real artist painting, and I think that there is a possibility that one of these smaller paintings may end up in the parlor next to the front door, but the size I needed for the dining room was out of my price range. 

In any event, I needed a fairly large and inexpensive piece.  I have had my eye on Bessie for two years now, and even tried my hand at recreating her myself, but my art talents do not extend to drawing things that resemble real-world items.  She was not horrendously expensive, but the oversize shipping charges were ($159!!), and so she remained at the store for the past two years.  One day, I visited Bessie on the computer (as one does, I have full shopping carts in many internet retail establishments)...and there was a 20% off plus free shipping coupon THAT APPLIED TO THIS ENORMOUS PAINTING.  So. We are now the proud owners of a light blue and red cow painting that goes really nicely with my red persian rug and turquoise lamps.




Next as we make our way around the dining room:  the rug, the chandelier, the curtains,  the "patina" of wear on the table, and not enough chairs.  

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