perfectly imperfect

I've been meaning to post a before and after of our dining room table for a long time. There are a few reasons I didn't right away, which I'll explain. But first, here's the before, in all it's heat-marked, scratched-up glory:

My Grandad gave us a gift certificate to Crate & Barrel when we got married and we bought this table and chairs. I loved it at the time. Over ten years later, it had seen better days. I still vividly remember the first time it got a white heat mark from a bunch of pizza boxes when we moved into our second home. I was pretty devastated. (Yeah, that was obviously before we had kids. I've since learned to not feel so much connection to inanimate objects. Nothing is sacred now when left to their destructive devices.) And judging by all of those iron shaped marks, obviously I gave up completely and just started ironing my table cloth RIGHT ON THE TABLE. 

My genius hubby got his hands on some barn wood and, true to form, whipped up my dream table in just a few weekends. He's handy like that. 

So, this table has been done for many months. Here are the reasons I haven't posted until today: 

1. The bottom needs another coat of white paint, preferably some chalk paint. But frankly, that's not happening any time soon. Sometimes good enough is good enough. 
2. When Target came out with these chairs, I thought we were going to get a couple of them right away so I wanted to wait til we had those. But we didn't. We'll get all new seating eventually but I'm not sure when that will be. My plan is the two metal chairs at either end, three different antique wooden farmhouse chairs, all painted white, on one side, and a barn wood bench on the other. What do you think? I'll probably just need to see it all together to decide if I'd rather have all chairs or two benches. (Also, honey, those chairs are on sale now! *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*)
3. In order to photograph and post about the table, that would require the room be clean and my side table looking mostly decorated! Let's just say this was my biggest hold-up :) Here's a good before for you of the space. 

Oh, and just to keep things real around here, this is what the table looked like before I cleaned it off to take pictures. This is our normal. I get discouraged sometimes when I see people (who have at least three kids) with beautifully decorated and spotless homes in the background of their pictures and wonder how the heck they keep it that way. Its beyond me. I spend all my energy during the day keeping them fed and not yelling at them: 

So without further ado:

 The first few days it was in, I found myself lovingly petting it as I walked by. I couldn't believe this beauty was in my house.

 I had to fight a praying mantis for these flowers today. (And by fight, I mean stay far far away from.)

I feel like the decorations here are just a tad too formal looking for my taste, and not enough personality, but I like it for now. Would you paint the birdcage white too?? I've debated that since I bought it a couple of years ago. This side table is my favorite piece of furniture we own. We got it at 50% off when an Asian antique store in Des Moines went out of business. It was one of those things that I absolutely could not believe we could actually afford and bring home. I will love it forever.

 I love every little imperfect piece:

 Here you can see how Jon just mounted the barn wood top right onto our old, newly painted, table:

I think there's way too much wood going on on this side of the room. I'm just working with what I have for decorations. Someday I'll move the antique shutters somewhere else and do a gallery wall of 9 botanical prints, evenly spaced in three rows.  

 And the full room shot with the casing Jon added around the doorway last year, which you can see better here.:

Jon even cut the leaf in the middle of the old table down so it was the perfect length. We can comfortably seat eight. Jon's been whipping these up from scratch and selling them now! We have a table for sale currently in our garage that Jon's anxious to get rid of, so if you're local and know of anyone who'd be interested, let me know! 

There's a long way to go to feel like this home is really "me" but I'm content to take it slow and revel in each new piece I'm able to add. I've kept this quote a friend told me a long time ago in the forefront of my mind: "Happiness lies not in getting what you want but in wanting what you already have." I'm beyond blessed and I would be a fool to see it any other way.