Flea Market Style dining room

As anyone who knows me, or follows my blog knows... I love old stuff.  My mom was a flea market style decorator WAY before it was fashionable and had it's own magazine dedicated to it.  On sundays she would go to the local drive in flea market and buy stuff for a few dollars, bring it home and redecorate the house with it.  She was so good at using what she had, and completely changing the look of something by rearranging and changing the color.  Every couple of months I would come home and the house would either be rearranged, or in the process.  We would help her move stuff around so she could have it done by the time dad got home.  I never really realized what she was doing until recently.  She was moving energy unconsciously.  She wasn't the trained psychic she is now, back then.  She didn't know feng shui or anything about energy.  But she did know the house "felt" better after she moved things around. 

Whenever I feel stuck energetically, I clean and then I purge, and then I rearrange.  All lessons taught to me by my mom... She was down here recently and helped me decorate my new living-room-turned-dining-room.  Together we make an awesome team.

I showed you the dresser and cup shelf I had done previously.  I also had this china hutch I bought at goodwill for $40.  I had intended for Paskie to use it in the garden with his plants on it.  It was dark brown, and too shaded on the lower shelves for the plants.  So I painted it white and brought it inside.  By placing it on the other side of the fireplace, it balanced the dresser and cupshelf I had on the other side. It also gave me space to display the rest of my tea collection.  Mom had also regifted me with a dining room set we traded back and fourth a few times.  It was silver and gold metal.  I painted the base white, and stuck the chairs in the tack room for another days project.  I took the chairs I had left from an old farmhouse table set I bought when I was pregnant with Zack 17 years ago, and spray painted those white as well.  It took 2 coats to get the right coverage, but they look great.  The mirror I got from friends when they closed their business, and the pictures above it, I had purchased a long time ago at a garage sale.  They all came out of the tack room (my storage facility.)  We placed my grandmas trunk, which my dad painstakenly refinished for me, under the window for now.  It will eventually go in my bedroom.

Then mom went digging in the garage and tack room some more, and found these pictures, frames and shelves to create these spaces.  The chair was one I bought to recover, but it goes perfectly now in the space the way it is, so I am leaving it for now.  All I have left to do is recover and paint the matching dining chairs and paint the long dresser I have in the tack room, and my flea market style dining room is complete.