dining room - the (mostly) after

As a refresher, here are the before pictures of the sunroom-turned-dining-room. And, some progress pics here.

As we (David/Randy) made a bit more headway on the room construction, we (I) realized the completion date was going to be precariously close to David's sister and her family coming to visit. They have four kids now, and I knew we would need and want as much space as possible so I encouraged (read: was annoying and persistent) everyone to get it finished before their arrival. Last week turned out to be nutty, but we got it finished. David made the VERY wise decision to hire John Bryant to come help get stuff done around the house. Some things had just gotten a backseat because the room had taken priority (clean out the gutters, put together our new grill), but he was a total lifesaver to have help. He was at the house Tuesday night until 10:30 laying tile because it HAD to get done that night in order for the timing of the rest of the week to happen. Oh, and a tree fell on the house mid-week, and he took care of that too. Whew. It really was a nutty week.

Now, some pictures (and a few scattered words - mostly for my future recollection):

Table score at the Pottery Barn outlet!

Then, this happened. Lovely, right? We actually had someone come give us an estimate to have this tree limb cut down a few weeks ago, and he told us it didn't need to be. Nice. Fortunately it came down very slowly over the course of a few days, so it didn't cause much damage (a dented gutter and part of the deck rail that needs to be re-nailed together).

And, the finished product! Complete with farmers market flowers David brought home on Thursday :).

We got the chairs from Pier One when they were running a sale, but our local store only had five in stock so my parents picked up the sixth one. The brown pillows were on the porch before, and they are a bit faded but who cares? I've had the baker's rack since my Birmingham house, and now it's finally getting more use. We certainly still have some styling to do - oh, and a boat load of touch up painting. Oops. Turns out I'm pretty horrible at painting... But, all in all we can call it complete. Tonight was our first family dinner in there, and it was so wonderful. I'm loving it already!