The Living Room and the Dining Room

In this house, you enter directly into the living room. I know that's like bad Feng Shui and stuff, but it really doesn't bother me. We basically use this room for three purposes-- we entertain Home and Visiting Teachers here, the kids practice their instruments here, and I sometimes escape here to read a book when the rest of the house is in chaos.

For those that are interested, the birch tree paintings are by Leslie Graff, the truck painting over the piano is by Bruce Smith and was bartered for piano lessons in a deal with my mother-in-law (it's on loan from the in-laws), and the thing on the right side of the couch is a bunch of handkerchiefs with all the states we've lived in, an idea I stole from the Julie and Julia movie. The couch is from Room and Board, the chairs are from Overstock, and the tables are a KSL classifieds find, Eames for Lane.

The dining room is the least-used room in the house, and it's also my favorite. The chairs are Tolix. I'm glad that my mom talked me out of the bright yellow ones I'd fallen in love with at Design Within Reach in favor of these white ones. The table is an old yellow laminate number from the 1950s. I found the corner cabinets, unpainted, on Craigslist, and my mom and I painted them yellow and gray (you can't see the second one in these pictures, but it's also on the north wall). I had a small collection of plates on the wall in our Texas house, and when we moved in here, I knew I was going to expand it to fill the dining room walls. I had lots of help-- friends and family called me from the strangest places when they found something that might work on the walls, and we filled in the last bare spot about a year after we moved in.

The inspiration for the color scheme for both of these rooms was the San Francisco Victorian House cookie jar that you can see on the shelf the dining room corner cupboard. We lived in the Bay Area when I was little, and both my mom and godmother had cookie jars like this when I was growing up. I wanted one for my house, and my godmother gave me this one, which had belonged to her mother. If the house started burning down, I'd probably grab this cookie jar, in all its kitschy glory, on my way out the door.

Up tomorrow: Hallway, half bath, laundry room. Exciting times, friends!