Dining Room Table

When I bought my house and I imagined having parties I just assumed the big hang out spot would be the living room because the kitchen is very tiny and nobody hangs out in dining rooms. Well, I was wrong. I've had several parties and have friends over often and the one place we always end up is around the dining room table. (I'd show you photographic proof, but I never take pictures of my friends anymore oops.)

I think I've mentioned it before but my dining room is huge! I mean seriously it is disproportionally large for a 960 square foot house. To give a reference that table is 6 1/2' long and look how much space is left around it. Crazy! I mentioned here that I hope to add bookshelves along the right wall in the near future. But the point of the post is to sing the praises of my dining room table. Weird right? Seriously though this where everyone naturally hangs out when they come over. The table was a hand me down from my parents. It lived for about 10 years in their dining room that was used maybe once a year. When I inherited it, the chairs looked like this:

You may not be able to tell from this picture but the fabric was pink and cream with lots of stains and wear (surprising since we never used them). But that was an easy fix I just laid the chairs down, unscrewed the seat pad, and stapled on the new fabric.

I chose the Stockholm Blad fabric from IKEA.

(Source)

This color is called 'beige' but unless I'm colorblind it's grey. I like how it looks like x-rays of leaves. It is $8.99 a yard. I bought five yards and it squeaked by as barely enough. I like using IKEA fabric for reupholstering because their fabric is a very thick cotton and so far it has held up really well.

So for a total of $48 and a borrowed stapler (thanks Nikki and Ben!) I updated my free dining room table. The top of this table has a lot of deep scratches, but it really doesn't bother me. I like that it looks lived with, plus I don't have to be too careful when using it. Some day I hope to get something a little 'cooler' because this isn't the table I would have chosen for myself but most of the time free stuff isn't. I am very grateful that I was able to get this hand me down and I intend to use it until I can afford an upgrade. Then I'll pass this baby along to the next person who can use it. Yay for making free things look a little better!