The table is set.

I am adding this to Susan's Tablescape Thursdays! :)

First of all, can I tell you how much you are my Squeezies? Your responses to my cord covering post absolutely had me cracking. up. You guys get me. Double pound to the chest to y'all.

So the dining room is turning out so great, I can barely stand it. I love it so much! I am getting there with the reupholstering of the chairs. I tore off the backs of three more this evening, and although my hand looks like a claw now, I have four almost done. I think I've finally figured out how to get the backs back on the chair, which is kind of important. ;) I cannot wait to show you -- they make the whole room!

Part of my birthday gift to myself (doesn't everyone do that?) was new dishes for the dining room. I never registered for china when we got married -- if people wanted to get us something, I wanted it to be something we would really use. Instead I bought a set of Pier 1 gold and red dishes that went perfect with the old dining room.

Obviously, they don't any more. Now, they are our everyday dishes and I have no idea why I waited so long to do that! Funny how at 34 I finally feel like an adult every day when we eat, not using the dishes from college. ;) So last week I was on the hunt for new, luscious dinnerware that I could piece together for the dining table.

Yesterday I needed the final piece -- the placemats. I bought three items -- two chargers and a placemat (I have to see how things work!) and ended up keeping the placemat:
It's simple and the brown matches the chairs and walls perfectly. I like how simply elegant they are. (From Stein Mart.)

Next up, my HomeGoods plates:Ummm. I love them. The room is fairly simple with the colors, so I wanted to bring in some flair with the dishes. They have a little accent of brown in them:

Next up, I wanted a square salad plate, and found some at Target:

They don't match the other browns exactly but I only notice it when taking a picture in this light. ;)

Then, simple white linens, (again from Stein Mart) placed on the plate like Pottery Barn. Cause I like how Pottery Barn sets a table:

Simple detail:

I found PERFECT bowls at Pier 1:

With a little touch of curvy:

To finish it off for the season, I added metallic pumpkins (more on those later!) inside each bowl:

To finish off each setting, I added the water goblets I've been collecting at Goodwill (for 49 cents each!) over time:

And I absolutely ADORE how it turned out!

But it still needed just a little something. Little white votives at each setting finished it off:
GORG!!

You have no idea how much I wanted to eat our dinner of leftovers here tonight. ;) We will eat here much, much more, when the room is complete.

As a reward, I am going to fix a fab meal for us when I'm done. I just ordered the new light fixture tonight, and in my head, it absolutely completes the room. Let's just hope it turns out like in my noggin!

Once I finish up the chairs and the bench for the seating, and get that light installed...it's done! I hope to show you the final reveal next week. You won't believe the before and after. Wowzers.

Don't you all love the look of a set table? Do you keep yours set all the time? I never have because of the fear of DUST. But now I'm so tempted to leave it like this all the time. (Well, maybe without the silverware. We kinda need that.) I just love it.

I'll be back tomorrow with another fab giveaway! Stay tuned.

P.S. I was thrilled to be featured at Foxnews.com! Check out their highlight of my "Fall glow" post here.

How I accessorize.

ACK! I'm so thrilled at your response about my centerpiece! Yippee, I'm so glad you love it as much as I do! :) I love that WalMart and Target are going to sell out of mirrors this weekend. ;)

Awhile back when I showed you my Ballard Designs shelves, I promised to show you how I accessorize. I struggle with filling spaces with stuff. I usually like the end result, but it takes much running around/fluffing/rearranging. There are a few basics I know work when accessorizing that I wanted to share with you. Cause you are my Squee-zays.

You may have heard the odd number suggestion -- that is using one, three, five, seven, etc. of items. For some reason it just appeals more to the eye. That's what "they" say anyway. Sometimes I listen to "they," sometimes I tell them to shut it. I happen to agree on this one:
My homemade sofa table in our living room is our living room is one arrangement I really like. You'll notice the three finials (Goodwill/Hob Lob finds, spray painted black). I like the little cabinet in the middle because it gives the table something weighty to hold it's own in the middle.

Balance is something else I think helps big time -- when you have something tall on one side, even it out with something tall on the other:
The lamp on the left is up on books to mimic the tall rattan vase to the right of the sofa (that you can't really see here) and balance that area.

The same goes for shapes. The two candlesticks are the same shape as the finials and balance them out on the other side. The large square print on the right needed something to balance it out, but so I used a smaller ceramic square on the left:

Let's see if I can say "balance" one more time. Umkay...balance. I also lurrrrve easels -- I use them everywhere to bring items up just a bit higher.

I love how the Ballard shelves look right now, but it was a process. This was the start:

I heart leaning frames against each other. I do it all over the place. I knew I wanted that look here, but the mismatched frames weren't doing it for me. The balance (No. 324) on the top shelf was not right, so I moved on to this:

I loved my cut up art much better than the frames -- much simpler but a much bigger impact than the frames. Something was bugging me though -- you may notice, the left side of both shelves were both high. You want the eye to travel up and down when it looks at something like shelves. The way it was, the eye started up and went down on both levels. So I simply flipped everything on the bottom shelf:

My next tip -- use BOOKS! They are FAR-REE!! Take the covers off, and stack em! But don't stack em on the same side of each shelf!! Again, too much weight over on the right -- you KNOW...the BALANCE is all off. Gah.

I put the books on the top shelf under the pitcher instead, and propped up the "art" with an easel:

Add a few sprinkles of fall-y stuff, and you're golden. Yesssssss...

In our office, I have a few treasured items I want to have out, but not a lot of space to put them. One of the shelves on this bookcase is busier than I like, but I tried to even (Ha! I didn't say balance! Dang, yes I did!!) it out by making the other shelves simpler:

Books are key, stacked on each other or upright. Love me some stacked books. Hee. My bookshelf is stacked. Totally.

The large frame has an easel back, and if you don't have room for it to stand up, just lean it! I probably wouldn't put some of these accessories in any other room, just because they wouldn't go. This room is a tad bit more eclectic, so it works. (At least I think it does.)

All it took to make me completely happy was to run the cord down the back of the shelves so the horrible thing was out of my sight:

Whew.

Umkay, after explaining all of this, it sure does sound like all these steps go through my head every time, like some freaky OCD chick, and they so do not. OK, I'm lying, they totally do. But in the span of, like, five seconds, not the 20 minutes it took to write this all down. ;)

One more tip -- take a pic! (Anyone know the insanely annoying cute show that is from?) Take a picture of your space, and it will give you a different outlook on it. I don't know why, but you notice things in a picture you wouldn't otherwise.

To reward all you Squeezies who stayed with me through all of this rambling, I've got a saahweet little giveaway for you! I really mean it, it's little, but saaahweet.

These little white Dollar Store pumpkins were all the rage last fall! I found some a few weeks ago and had to pick up a couple for one of you!

Remembering my "rule of threes" -- I went back for a third this week and they were GONE! Already!! I bet could sell these things for like, FOUR DOLLARS on eBay right now peeps -- they are a hot commodity.

When I went back, I noticed the fun black crows I had grabbed for myself weeks before were pretty much gone too, so I grabbed one for you! He's a little worse for the wear, but he's got one good side:

The little leaf spreaders were at the dollar spot at Tar-jay the other day, and I couldn't resist them (for you).

Just leave a comment here this weekend (till 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday!) and I'll announce the winner Sunday night! Have a great one!

A new dining room centerpiece.

**The night picture has been added. ;)

I have mentioned before that there were many things I didn't love about our dining room before:
One of the biggies was the centerpiece. I don't do centerpieces. I'm OK with the little kitchen table, but big, long-A dining room tables I am totally at a loss for. I always imagine some gorgeous expanse of something...just never knew what that something was.

Then I saw an idea on HGTV a few months ago, and I started gathering up my supplies over time. More on that later....

A few weeks ago while walking through Target, looking at the back to school stuff (and wishing it was fall decor, puhleeze), I saw a $4.50 mirror, and it hit me. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I grabbed the mirror:

It was CHEAP, flimsy, easily breakable. So I carefully pulled off the craptastic frame:

I was left with the flimsy mirror and the paper backing. I left that on, just so I wouldn't have to risk breaking the glass. Or maybe it's that I was lazy. I don't know.

Anyhoo...I found some extra plywood in the garage and went to Lowe's to have it cut down to the size I needed -- one foot by four feet.

I used this handy dandy glue all over the plywood:

And just set the paper-backed mirror down on it. I wiggled it around for a bit, to make the glue smoosh around and adhere, and then turned the whole thing upside down so the weight of the plywood would create a good seal. I did all this on the floor, so everything was level.

Then, I took some of the fab, chunky molding from my Ballard Designs shelves (I swear this stuff is going up all over my house!) and cut it with my precious compound miter saw to fit right over the mirror:

It was a bit too stark for me at first, so to get the distressed look you see above, I used my handheld sander, and scuffed up the edges just a bit:

I wanted the distressing to look like the color of the table, so I took my itty bitty can of walnut stain:

(This little can has lasted foreva.) I used a foam brush and wiped it on the bare wood, then used a wet paper towel to quickly wipe it off. This was the result:

The items I have been gathering for months are simple glass candleholders, in all different sizes:
Most of these I got for $1 and $2 at Goodwill. I think only three I actually purchased at Hobby Lobby, for half off. The most I paid was $10 for the largest one in the middle. It was freaky weird that I ended up with almost exact pairs of sizes over a span of a few months. I didn't plan it that way, but it worked out perfect!

My inspiration was from an HGTV show where they wrapped similar holders with gauzy fabric, and it created such a pretty glow. So I got fabric for just a few bucks in white, and using double-sided tape, I wrapped all of them:

They aren't perfect on one side, but if anyone ever noticed that in person, I'd give them a gold star, for real. Or a cookie. Whatever they'd rather have for being insanely observant. ;)

You'll notice in this picture, even though I had painted it all out, the plywood was really noticeable on the bottom:

I tried to live with it, I did. For about a week, I did! But it looked so unfinished to me, it was giving me the heebies. I struck gold yesterday in the garage when I found extra molding I had used in the room. It was perfect to wrap the whole thing:
Ahhhh, yes. I can stop itching, the hives are gone.

It is beautiful on it's own, but I crave WARM, so luckily this is just the time of year to get that. I added more beady thangs:

Some cutie little smell-good pinecones:

And it's really, really lovely:
Here it is as I peek around the corner:
Can't show you the windows just yet -- that's next. ;) I really adore this. It's simple, it's clean, but it can be dressed up so easily. And this isn't just for the table -- when I was working on it, I held it up to the wall and realized how gorgeous it would be hanging too...I may make another to do just that!

Although it's pretty during the day, it is just stunning at night. I was going to wait to post this so I could take one final picture tonight, but I know how mean that would be, since I've been tweeting about it constantly lately.

And here. you. go:

;)