Dining Room Redo & Thrifty Treasures

Hosted by Rhoda and Sally

This creamer set, bought from a Boy Scout garage sale, $1.50
This beautiful serving bowl is from a much sought after manufacturer... I'm so excited because it's my very first! See how great it looks? It's a SPODE!!!
I think I may have found my official Summer pattern! Yay, Me!
See the red tag on the bowl, I've seen this listed online for as much as $36 and as low as $18, but I paid only $7.50! That Tiger Lily "spoke" to me...


Thank you Rhoda and Sally for being our gracious hosts for these memes!
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Hosted by "Between Naps on the Porch"

I want to share with you today the first phase of my dining room redesign. Yes, like most of you, unless you're a pro interior designer, I do my own redesigning using Feng Shui philosophies.

I'm not quite done yet so I will have to post the completed redo next Met Monday. But to let you in on what I'm doing, I'm swapping furniture in two places.

You see, I was interrogating "Brain" as to where else can I stash my growing collection. I asked, "Brain" where else in this tiny apartment can I store my dishes? I don't want to give DH a reason to convince me to head for storage with any of them except for the overtly seasonal ones, you know?

"Brain" then told me to look at the bookshelf and the dining area then back to the bookshelf. And "voila!" I've got it!

Since I'm planning to do three tablescapes on May 5th (Mother's Day Brunch, Patio Meme and Cinco de Mayo dinner), I also needed to figure out the best way to present my dining area so the thinking began... (think, think, think...) While I thought it all out, I began the cleaning out phase of the process, so these are only few pictures you'll see for now.

This is my narrow hallway leading to our master. That's our low horizontal IKEA 10-cubby bookshelf. It holds a lot, but my children took it over and each basket in the cubby became a catch all for things we don't use! See the paper on the door? That's my 9-year old's "massage" schedule list. Bet you didn't know that I had a personal masseuse in the family, huh? It's great! All for the great low, low price of 50 cents a session!



Here's my dining area (not room). Before I can swap furniture out, I had to empty them first! So you all are getting a glimpse of part (yes, I said only part) of my dinnerware collection! I just found two other ones, and will feature them soon!


Here's a glimpse of the slow process of organizing this space. Mind you, nothing is in its permanent space yet, that's for today's agenda...

This is just a portion of my collection, some are in the storage, some are upstairs, so stay tuned...

How am I doing so far? You'll see a little bit more later. Lots more to do tomorrow!

Susan, another big round of thank yous for being our wonderful host for today! Make sure to visit everyone through her site so you can all kinds of awesome transformations happening!

TABLESCAPING IDEA: ("Brain" just loves coming up with great ideas!) I'll be doing this tablescape soon, so watch out for it... For this Mother's Day week, plan a brunch for a few close friends and create a fresh and light table. The menu, a buffet of fingerfoods that will invite conversations. Ask them to bring a fingerfood each to make things easier for you and also make them feel more a part of the celebration rather than a mere guest. For favors, give them each something that they can use and will enjoy!