From Shabby to Sleek {Our Dining Room}

There is not much that I love more than the hope, excitement and dreams I have upon the arrival of the New Year. While our homes can look bleak and vacant after the chaos and clutter of Christmas is boxed up and put away, there is a beauty and newness that I crave. Empty becomes beautiful. It feels so good to sweep away dead pine needles, get healthy and revitalized and make exciting plans for the coming year.  I have been doing just that this past week. We have major decisions to make regarding our next move, how long we will be in Europe, and our life in the military. This past week has also been filled with loads of work for me! While vacation and parties are fun, it is so satisfying getting back into work mode. 

I had done a ton of work on the dining room for the holidays and I am so thrilled to show you what I have worked on, sans all the Christmas decor. It is such great fun working and creatingr...

UPDATE: We recently added this French mirror since I wrote this post, so I will show pictures with the mirror and with the art!
Here it is now...

 Here is a little reminder of what our (rental) barn dining room looked like before we changed out the light fixtures, painted, and created a pallet wine bar...

And here it is now (before we added the French Mirror)! No matter how many times I redo a room, I am always amazed at what paint and light fixtures can do to a space. There is so much more I would do if we owned this home, but (besides paint) we only want to put money into things that we can bring with us to our next home(s).

Since the barn is super shabby and vintage on it's own, I decided to make our furniture a little more sharp, high gloss and chic. We ditched the white-washed look and painted our buffet a glossy black and my antique dresser, grey and white. Both pieces look so fresh, and fantastic with our DIY zebra-hide rug.

I moved our vintage school map to our stair-well where our time zone clocks were, and moved the clocks into the striped hall! Every time I catch a glimpse of this map, I imagine a ton of little kids in a school house, gazing at it while learning about this beautiful country. 

Everything looks SO cohesive now. I kept the room's color pallet of black, white, and grey, so that the vintage map and any other colorful antiques I get, will be the center of attention. We are hoping to find a few striking oil paintings on our future adventures.

Here is our updated dresser...

Here is a reminder of what our Shabby dresser looked like before.

Now it is clean looking and doesn't distract from the naturally aged, French bottle dryer. I snagged this iron beauty in Metz just as the flea market was packing up! I have been wanting one for so long. What a score!

Below is the before picture of our roughed up, white, Belgian buffet with the vintage map behind it before I moved the map to its new home in the stairwell. As you know, I LOVE moving things around and thought the map fit perfectly in our stairwell. 

Here is my Buffet/Bar all sleek, shiny, and black.  It is a nice, heavy, masculine piece that I discovered at a Belgian flea market while on a weekend flea market getaway.  I will always cherish my time in Belgium. What a uniquely, stunning country it is. I am so grateful I have this piece to remind me of my time there. Click here to read about Belgium!

Here is the after shot of the buffet.

This old wooden rake was found abandoned in our barn. It makes the perfect wine goblet holder.

The Pallet wine Bar all stocked up with vino!

Here is a close up on our new mirror...

Stay tuned to see more on the striped hall!

How can you freshen up things in your home by simply moving things around and repainting? 

P.S. Our home is being featured on Eclectically Vintage Blog tomorrow 1/11/14 and we are so elated!! Kelly has mad skills and it's an honor to be on her gorgeous blog!