We haven’t talked about the dining room in a while around here. I showed you a few things months ago, like our strong use of pattern, our lantern planter, and our artwork for this space. This room sat THIS close to being done for a while, but the one thing left to be done was to style the black bookcases we had in the corner! I just couldn’t figure out what to put on them. The Holiday Home Tour came around, and they got decorated for Christmas. But when the holiday stuff came down, I was still clueless about what to do with them.

 In an attempt to make them look complete, I pulled out out every book and decorative item I had. Everything I tried felt very random, cluttered, and out of place. Then, as I was literally on my way out shopping to find something to fill these babies, it occurred to me that I had some fantastic-ly shaped everyday dishes and serve-ware tucked away inside our kitchen cabinets. Although these are technically bookcases,  their location in our dining room meant I could certainly use them as a dining hutch, right? (After all, I’m already using a dining hutch as a bookcase ;).

I pulled out my everyday dishes and platters as well as a few other decorative items I had around the house, and all of a sudden, the display felt very right to me!

See how I pulled this whole thing together after the jump!

Although I was loving the all white china on the black cabinet, these shelves were craving a punch of color (I can’t do anything without some color, after all!). Then we painted the high chair green (remember?)…

…and I knew it was exactly the ticket to making this bookcase come alive! I added a boxwood wreath (that I had been eyeing at Target for months), hung from the center with some textured white fabric. I’ll show you how I did this in the next week!

I then just kept my eyes open for some perfectly suited green items to fill the nooks among my dishes!

A stack of my favorite food-related books bring a nice punch of color, and the real green plants in these awesome little planters (from Marshalls for $4) add just the right color and “texture.”

I scored the Fiestware green pitcher for $15 from a consignment shop (and absolutely did a happy dance when I did so!)…

The matching green planter was a $9 clearance find from Marshalls, as were the green cedar nesting buckets on the top shelf ($18 for three!). The dark green vase, stool, tea set, and dried sea urchins are all from our travels to Japan…

I am so thrilled that I worked really, really hard to figure out what to do with these shelves. After all my attempts, our lovely dishes (that we adore) are displayed and handy when we need them; and a few decorative touches bring it alive and make it feel complete. This “dining room hutch” is situated at the end of the hallway from the bedrooms and back of the house, so as I come into the main area of the house, this is always the first thing that greets me. The green always makes me smile!

I’m not quite ready to proclaim this room done, but we are really, really close. Here’s a peak of how everything is coming together!

Hope your week is going great! See you Friday!

See You Soon!
Megan