Voila!! The Dining Room is complete

Panic only set in one last time after the painting and baseboards were in...the night the furniture was delivered. The room was EXTREMELY dark, so dark, it felt like a cave. Granted it was 11pm, Hubby was playing hockey and the baby was freaking out because the delivery company decided it would be ok to deliver the dining set at such an ungodly hour. Oh and did I forget to mention that we didn’t have the light fixture in yet and the only light in the room was the pot lights?
The next morning I felt a bit better when I went downstairs to find it wasn't so bad...we just needed something big and white as a contrast to the dark wood – an area rug. Typically I am not a rug person but we really didn’t have a choice. The room needed it. Luckily, the rug Gods were smiling on us that day as we found exactly what we were looking for at the first store. A really nice cream, grey and beige, non wool (I am allergic) area rug.

The Finishing Touches

We added some art to the walls which was another quick DIY project. Hubby took some pictures of the city from the roof of a building in downtown Ottawa. We had them enlarged and we put them in matching frames. We lucked out and found the frames at Michaels. They already had prints in them, but the frames matched perfectly with the room. So we bought new mats sized for the frame and our prints. Removed the old prints and put ours in. The frames were $14.99 each, new mats were $13.99 each, prints were $2.49 each. For less than $100 we got 3 custom pieces of art. The only thing I would do differently is get the prints done in a matte finish so they don’t look as shiney through the frames.

As I was putting together the room, I found the china cabinet a little too ornate for our style. I was able to remove the top decorative crown which made it look a little less format. I added a runner to cover up the holes and found some picture frames in different sizes to display some more family photos.

With all the neutral colours in the house, I have decided to add a pop of colour here and there with accents. This way if purple is in this season and red the next, I can mix it up and keep the décor looking modern. I used purple hydrangeas in the centerpiece, purple candle holders on the mantle, purple napkins when I set the table for guests and eventually purple candle sticks (pretty hard thing to find) and a purple patterned pillow for the head chair. See? There is a method to my madness…

Here is a before, during and after picture of the Dining Room.

Before:
During the Frame Walk…


View from the Living Room the day we moved in...


During:
All the Big furniture is moved in...


After:
Complete Room with pictures on the wall...

This room seems a little dark

With the room painted and the dining set moved in we needed to find a light fixture. We couldn’t make a decision on what exactly we wanted. I love glitter and my thoughts were a long rectangular light with crystals dangling from it. We look around and couldn’t find one quite long enough. You are probably asking yourself, how do you know what long enough is?

Project 1B: Lighting

The Numbers

Generally, there are 2 ways you can come up with this measurement of a dining room light fixture.

1. Add the length and width of your room together, the resulting number is the diameter of your chandelier. We calculated our room like this:

10’9” (10.75’) + 16’4” (16.333’) = 27.083
We would be looking for a chandelier about 27” in diameter.

2. Select a chandelier that is ½ to ¾ the size of your dining room table, but it must be 24” shorter than the table (ie 12” on either side). Whoa that’s some heavy duty math…. For our table we calculated like this (our table is 75” x 45”):

75” x 0.75 = 56.25”
75” - 56.25” = 18.25”
18.25 / 2 = 9.125”
By this calculation, a 56” long chandelier is too long

75” x 0.5 = 37.5”
75” – 24” = 51”

Now that you have determined your approximate size, you should also take into consideration how much light the fixture is giving off. To determine the wattage, multiply the length and width of your room, then multiply the result by 1.5. The answer is the number of watts your room will need to be well lit.

Our room was calculated like this:

10’9” (10.75’) x 16’4” (16.333’) = 175.58 sq feet
175.58 x 1.5 = 263.37 watts

The Shopping List

The calculation you go with should be dependent on the configuration of your room and the shape of your dining room table. Since our dining room houses a main artery to the kitchen and we have a long rectangular table, we chose to go with calculation number 2 since it made the most sense to us and the use of our room.
We decided we were looking for a fixture between 37.5” and 51” long, about 21” wide and would let off about 263 watts of light. We chose to ignore the pot lights as both lights would probably never be on at the same time. The pot lights were there to highlight our wall art and the dining room fixture was there to create ambiance in the room.

With our list in hand, off to the store we go!

The Selection

We went to a local specialty lighting store since we could not find anything that suited our (ok mostly my) vision for our dining room at the local big box hardware stores. It was at this store I found and fell in love with the fixture of my dreams. A beautiful, sparkly, rectangular shaped chandelier that fit our measurements. BUT it was like $1800. Agh. Hubby quickly stepped up and talked me out of it. His argument? Our dining room set was made in the early 1900’s and this fixture was way too modern for it. It made sense and for once he was right (he’ll tell you it doesn’t happen that often, but I will give credit where credit is due.)

In the end, we picked out a brushed nickel, 6 light fixture that is reminiscent of an antique chandelier where they used pillar candles instead of electric lights with glass coverings.



Its all good until we think it through…6 lights, with a max wattage of 100 watts each. Holy crap! That’s about 600 watts of light for a room that needs less that half of that. The guy at the store says not problem. Install a dimmer. It’s funny how everything snowballs eh?