Dining!

Our dining area and kitchen are one big space. Here's the dining side in its Christmas best:: The lovely fern comes from the Schu nursery. I'm trying to decide if the cuckoo clock should hang on one of those open walls? Or if it's better suited to the guest bedroom, which is currently without a bed, but is acting as a gallery of sorts since we've laid out all of our art and frames in there!

Again, we are so lucky for those family friends I mentioned in the bedroom post. Both the kitchen hutch and the dining room table came from them. Just like the dressers, these are old, sturdy pieces with character. Check out the legs on this one::

Anyhoo, when you turn around, you see the kitchen::

What projects are in the running here? When cooking, we both love the use of a deep sink and solid counter top. So we've thrown around the idea of keeping the kitchen as is, just replacing the counter top and sink. Of course, I LOVE the kitchen redo that YoungHouseLove did, but in our case, everything about this kitchen is functional, in great shape, and nothing to complain about, so we'll have to save those grand plans for another day. Speaking of YoungHouseLove, are you keeping up with their blog? You should. My sister, Kris, and I were talking about the major YHL crushes that we have at the moment. Stepping out of that dreamy, kitchen-love haze, let's talk about... wait for it... veneer!

As you can see, we have some warped veneer on the edge of the table::

And at the top of the hutch, we have some veneer that's pealed off and a decorative piece of wood that's cracked:: I *think* fixing the crack will be a piece of cake with some wood glue and a clamp, especially since this is just a decorative piece of the unit, not holding any weight and not an area that's going to get any "use".

I would have never known where to begin with the veneer issues until Design*Sponge came out with this fantastic article! I think most of my work will focus on the segment of their article where they talk about fixing bubbled veneer. I want to avoid removing the veneer if I can help it, rather just do some minor maintenance and then let the age of the pieces shine through.

Every Thursday Design*Sponge posts a series of "before and afters", with a range of projects from furniture projects to full room renovations. In addition, they post the helpful DIY articles, like the veneer one I mentioned about. It's Thursday, so get over there and check them out!