ABOUT THE ROOM AND PHOTOS

This is our dining room. My favorite pieces in the room are the gorgeous swamp cypress farm table built by hand by Wes and the unsigned Andy Warhol The Birth of Venus print. The room has been changing since we moved in, and it is still being refined as I can afford to make the changes I want to make.

We started out by refinishing the gorgeous swamp cypress farm table that Wes had built entirely by hand, restoring it to its original beauty from swamp cypress he found, cut  and prepared by hand. It is the true showpiece of the room and always will be. The other piece that has pride of place is the authentic (yet unsigned) Andy Warhol The Birth of Venus print I found. I love The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and this is the closest I will ever get to it. It wasn't actually printed by Andy Warhol himself, but by his assistants, and is unsigned, so it is not valuble, but I love it. There were originally two prints I wanted to hang side by side since Andy Warhol displayed in multiples but one got damaged, so I framed a fragment of it along with the intact print. I am very proud of my Warhol print. It is my first foray into collecting art, such as it is.

All we had to go with it at first were four distressed black Crate & Barrel chairs with reed bottoms that I had gotten off eBay and picked up in Dallas when I was traveling through to drop off my son at his dad's and hauled back (originally to Alabama) in the back of my pickup truck. we added two gold chairs that Wes found at Tuesday Morning. We added the only rug we had, an off white shag rug I had previously bought from Lowe's. 

We later added a black glass front cabinet that I later moved to my office and tried the gold brocade chairs found on Craigslist that I later moved to my office as well. Wes found the bar at a damaged freight store that he was very proud of, although it stays mostly empty. We found the qntique Heriz Persian rug on eBay, along with a Heriz runner for the hallway, and retired the shag rug to a bedroom. When my widowed mother moved in with me after Wes passed away, I found a china cabinet on Craigslist to hold all of her china and crystal for there was no room for it anywhere else. We also hung her vintage rustic leaded glass mirror that always hung in our home in MIssissippi as I was growing up.

The turquoise bowl was a gift from my brother and his wife. The trio of vases are from master potter Tom Jones in Fairhope, Alabama, that I bought when I lived there. The glass bowl is my mother's. The pair of Lee chairs were also found on Craigslist. Mom couldn't see well in the dining room, so we purchased a new rustic black chandelier with Edison bulbs and gold trim from Lowe's (which was just as well as I truly hated the original one).

I want to paint the room (the walls and the ceiling too) the same gorgeous metallic gold EE2063A Crystalized Ginger Brilliant Metals by Valspar as in the living room. I want to add a deeper heavier crown moulding and refinish and restain the floors a walnut color. I would like to replace the china cabinet with an antique one and replace the bar with an antique sideboard. I want to reupholster the Lee chairs to add more color and also add better dining chairs, retiring the other chairs to the kitchen or to my future art studio in the basement.

I can't wait to see this room become what I envision and what I think it really wants to be.