Diary of a Dining Room

I love having a "formal" dining room. I have found it to be a nice problem to have...How do I best utilize this space? Coming from a 1,000 sq. foot rental to a house double that size, it is certainly a good problem to have. Over the past 18 months of living in our house, this room has grown and changed quite a bit! I love rearranging furniture and pictures and am constantly doing so. There are a couple of blogs I enjoy following for ideas (mostly The Nesting Place), but mostly go with my mood. If I have an extra 5 minutes during a given day, I'll probably grab a hammer and nails and change something around. Weird, I know, but it's fun. I would love to paint this room one day, but for now, I'm content finding the best arrangement of furniture and pictures. Not to mention the best use. This "dining room" has morphed from an eating room to a play room. The pictures speak for themselves.

The "dining room" when we moved in, 18 months ago. The table is centered in the room with the piano in the back corner. No pictures hung.

Two months after we moved in, my aunt gifted us with a "server" piece, which used to belong to my Grandmother. I love the large size and wood of this piece. I immediately filled it with extra dishes and kitchen things. See pictures below to see how that quickly changed.

In the picture below, notice the table is no longer centered in the room. I like how it balanced the room when I changed it's direction. I tried hanging plates and french boards on the walls, but couldn't get it quite "right." Left it up for several months, but never totally loved it. Also during this time, I made curtains out of the material of the top french board. I LOVE the curtains
(see the last picture below).

Trying different "tablescapes" on top of piano:

I am very pleased with the piano right now. It is no longer in the corner, but moved to the wall opposite the server.

I am also pleased with the wall above the server. Since I couldn't get the plates and french boards to work, I took it all down one day. I left it blank until we brought these four matching frames home from my husband's work. I wanted to get all black frames for his office, so that worked out well for the dining room. I like the unity of these frames. The green, yellow, and blue pails hold art supplies.

And now the unveiling of our new dining room. Ta-da! No more formal, stuffy-ness for this room. It's an all-out play room. 99.9% of the time it looks like this. The boys love having space that is their own, yet close to mom in the kitchen. I can make dinner and watch the boys in the playroom. When it's time to clean up, the toys fit in the server piece or in the white crates to the right. The blue table can fold and go in the front closet. Asher has the train table and toy bins in his room for his quiet time and for when the boys play upstairs. Isaac has been doing quiet time downstairs in the playroom.