Anders at Home – Dining Room Blank Slate

One of my life-long loves is designing the spaces I live in and trying to make things around me feel serene and pretty, so I thought I’d start a new little blog series: “Anders at Home” – to share the projects I’m working on.

We lease our current house, and that definitely has its pros and cons… it’s nice that we aren’t tied down in the crazy Seattle real estate market & can take some time to really think about what we need in a more long-term house when we’re ready to buy again. On the other hand, we have to ask before we do anything to the house, and that’s a challenge for us DIY-ers.

The entire interior of the 1940’s house (ceilings included) is painted a sort of dark khaki color – not bad for some people, I’m sure, but definitely not our style. I always love a bright white, with color here and there and, finally, after a year of various discussions and negotiations, we’ve been permitted to paint the living and dining rooms white! Literally minutes after getting the go-ahead, we were on our way to our local Benjamin Moore store to pick up a few gallons of “Simply White.” I used it in the shop, so we already knew we’d like it, and we were so ready to brighten things up in our little Seattle place.

Now that the two rooms are painted and looking gorgeous and airy, we have some decorating to do. I had the crazy idea to sand down the top of our vintage dining table (a Craigslist find from a few years back) just to freshen it up and expose those beautiful unstained oak tones, so I delegated that project to my husband (ha!). I’m totally in love with how it turned out – just have to pick up some mineral oil to protect it a bit (and maybe invest in some cute place mats and table cloths to protect it from everyday use).

And now for the fun stuff: wall decor and a new light fixture! We still have to get the okay from our landlords, but we’re thinking about doing a basket-style pendant light over the table (like this one from Serena & Lily or maybe this one from World Market).

As for wall decor, I’m thinking of doing a fun, full gallery wall on the left and either putting a mirror on the right wall or leaving it totally blank. It’s so clean and fresh right now, I’m almost tempted to be super minimal and leave it all blank, but in the end I don’t think that would feel as cozy for our family.

What do you guys think? Would you decorate the walls or keep it simple?! Stay tuned for an update when we have it all done!

xo, Sally

Photos: Sally Honeycutt