New Dining Room furniture

Ok, so it’s not actually IN the dining room yet — it’s hanging out in some free space in the living room, since the dining room table is currently buried in everything that would normally inhabit my kitchen counters — but we have a new dining set!:

4 chairs, table, and leaf (not currently in)

The set was originally in my great grandmother’s house; we sat around it for birthdays, etc. when I was a kid.  When she could no longer live alone, it went to my grandfather’s attic.  It’s been there for the better part of a decade, but he recently offered it to us if we wanted it.

Aside from a water spot on one end of the table that we’ll need to fix the finish on (or cover with a tablecloth…),

it’s in good shape, and is very solid and sturdy.

While I might not have chosen the style, it’s a neat old set to have, and since it’s rectangular instead of oval (like our current table), it will work a lot better on holidays with a banquet table extension on the end.

I’m thinking of removing the velour striped fabric from the seats of the chairs, and re-covering them.  The finish on the wood is in pretty good shape, so I may leave well enough alone with that.  The wood is in too good of shape to want to paint.

I’m not sure what color or pattern fabric I’d like to use to re-cover.  Whatever it is, needs to work with (or at least not against) the green carpet, which also runs through the dining room, and matches the wallpaper below the chair rail in the dining room.  I don’t want to match the green too well, though, because I’m so looking forward to replacing it.  (I think the carpet is original to the house.)

Re-covering the chairs will give me an excuse to not only do these four, but also three other chairs that I adopted during law school and have been hanging onto, waiting to figure out what room they’d go in before making over:

These chairs aren’t in nearly the good shape that my great grandmother’s are in.  (They’re in it for the “most improved” award, not the MVP.)   I’m considering sanding and painting these; maybe black, and recovering the seats with the same fabric as the other four chairs.  They won’t match, but they will coordinate well enough to give me a “set” of seven chairs around the table, which seats 8 with the leaf in, before resorting to any of my benches, stools, or metal folding chairs.

Now what fabric… this is the fun part!

I learned here that as a novice at recovering chairs, I probably want to avoid stripes and plaid.  (I avoid striped and plaid gift wrap for similar reason.)  I’d love to do a fun print.  Greens, blues, earth tones, black and white, paisley, damask… So many options!

*skips off to brainstorm*

This is way more fun than picking out paint colors!

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