I love that our living room, kitchen, and dining room are all in one open great room {you can check out our open space before we moved in here if you like}. This is the room we spend most of our time in, when we’re not working that is -and sometimes when we are, and since our television {which is hung above the fireplace} is always on, cooking and chatting and spending time together here is easy and fun.
While our kitchen is pretty big, and our living space is nice as well, the space cut out for the dining area feels a little tight. It was lucky that I bought this long narrow table for our old dining room, because it fits pretty perfectly here in the new space.
Here’s the space before we moved in…
* We’ve changed the doors and painted a few walls but eventually I’d like to swap all the carpet for hardwood floors as well as update the kitchen.
I’m still my mom’s old dining room chairs and I thought I’d just keep them until I figured out what style of chair I ultimately want in this space –and I’ve yet to decide {also because I may refinish the table and want chairs to match THAT and not this}. In our old dining room, we kept a long bench on one side, but that bench now resides at the end of our bed in the master bedroom because the style doesn’t fit this living space.
So we had all the chairs around the table up until recently {when we moved them all to the garage so the puppies wouldn’t get stuck under them and poop}, and the dining room looked like this…
I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with the space and originally hung my DIY Eat and Be Merry Canvases and called it a day. It was good enough. But I knew eventually it would change. I recently purchased these ikat chevron poufs for the living room to put around the coffee table, but when they arrived, they were bit larger than I anticipated, so I keep moving them around the space and finally settled on them alongside the dining room table. They’re a teensy bit too short, but I like the look of the open table and really, we usually just sit at the counter anyway, so it works.
Now, in this space, we have plenty of lighting. Their are 9 recessed lights in our kitchen ceiling, and two nautical looking sconces on the wall above the windows {in this particular area}, which are on dimmers and add a nice low light ambiance. So technically, we don’t NEED more lights. But the space was missing something without a chandelier or pendant lighting to designate and separate it a bit from the rest of the room.
As you may know, I don’t DIY electrical work, wiring or re-wiring, AND since we don’t REALLY need it for lighting, I’d been searching thrift shops and vintage stores and even online, for some type of candle chandelier, but everything I found had a Medieval feel or was just too heavy for the space.
In the mean time, I found the metal wall mirror/decor at Joss and Main and bought two so that it would really fill the wall nicely, and it did. I love it actually, but now that I have the pendants, I’m almost leaning towards a softer canvas or watercolor painting in blues to swap it out for. For now though, I’m happy.
And FINALLY I found these two large orb lanterns with chicken wire that open in the center like PacMan and fell in love. They’re rustic and open and were easy to hang and I love what they’ve done to the space. I use battery operated candles so I don’t even have to worry about drippy wax or fires. And best of all, I didn’t have to rewire or hire an electrician!
To get the look, Here’s What You’ll Need…
* Rustic chicken wire pendant candle lanterns {I found mine at a Joss and Main sale, so they’ll go on sale again I’m guessing}
* Medium/Large Screw Eye
* Rope or twine {to match the rustic look}
* Scissors
Steps…
1. Decide and measure where you want your pendants to hang. I had two beams centered above our table/dining room area, so it was easy for me to decide where, I just had to measure the width from the wall and match both.
2. Since I had beams, I simply drilled a starter hole, then hand-screwed my screw eyes into the wood and called it a day. If your ceilings are drywall, you may need extra support from a
3. I simply used brown twine {overlapped a few times for strength} to hang my lanterns, then used the extra twine to disguise the screw eyes by wrapping it tightly around them.
So Easy!
Shop the Look…
rustic candle lantern pendants // Dining table // Surya Illustrious Ikat Pouf Ottoman // sheepskin furs {cut in half} // ikat chevron pillows // lilypad mirrored wall art sculptures // pewter octopus // woven raffia table runner // curtains & hardware from Crate & Barrel
I’m excited to decorated them for Christmas! I think adding some faux greenery to the rope will look so fun!
