Yes, sadly, a month after moving in I only really consider one room complete and its the one I had mapped out right from the beginning.

The dining room was never going to be much of a challenge.  I knew what I wanted:

- A table large enough for dinner parties

- Chairs comfortable enough to spend time on without being revoltingly ugly and/or prohibitively expensive (seriously, I had no idea how expensive dining chairs could be.)

- Storage for drinks and glassware.

This was the original plan.

As of today, this is what we have:

Almost exactly the same right?  With the addition of the telescope lamp in the background.  We are currently considering whether we need two extra chairs (I am not sure we do).  We bought a large amount of stuff from IKEA but the table was the only piece to have a problem.  It has an extension leaf in the middle which has been manufactured wrong and we are currently awaiting the correct piece.  Totally liveable with for now though.

So, one room down - as soon as I clear out the clutter on the surfaces, just the rest of the house to go...

The swatches from Bemz arrived on Saturday

 

From the top centre: Sybarry - Dove Gray 100% Cotton, Zinc Gray 100% Cotton, Zinc Grey Linen Cotton Blend, Graphite Grey Linen Cotton Blend, Graphite Grey 100% Cotton Chenile.

 

We have chosen...

 

 

 

 

The cotton chenille was just too lovely, soft and velvety with a tight weave texture.

 

The swatches came with a small brochure giving more information about the fabrics. All the fabrics are machine washable, sanforised, treated with stain protector and subjected to the Martindale test.

Which is pretty impressive for E39 a cover.

No. 75 has a lounge-dining room running from the beautiful bay window at the front to the french doors opening onto the balcony at the back. The floor will be solid oak. It is light, it is airy, it is a blank canvas. Having chosen the lounge furniture, dark grey sofa and love seat, we needed something which would tone in while still being a "separate" area. I took inspiration from my beloved John Bates painting: I think we have decided on this table:

Ikea Norden (220/266 x 100) in Birch

These chairs:

and this cabinet:

Ikea Hemnes in Yellow

 

 

I know, it is a bit "Ikea Heavy" but trust me, we looked at the more expensive options and this is ultimately what works best for us.

 

To try and alleviate the Ikea-ness of the room and also because with O and The Cat around white is a completely impractical colour. We will be ordering covers for the chairs from Bemz. I have ordered all the grey fabric samples they have so hopefully one of them will work.

I plan on adding a purple table runner and maybe putting a couple of the chairs in purple (we will have 8 chairs in total), to pick up on the colours in the picture