Dining Room Update

We have wanted to redo our dining room since we moved into our house in 2012. We finally got to it this spring. Here is a before and after.

This is what it looked like just after we moved in. We never loved the idea of carpet in the dining room, and the longer we've lived here, the worse it has looked. 

One of the first things we changed was the light fixture, and then it has been pretty much the same for a few years. I never really loved the curtains either. Here are a few pictures of the room in use, mainly because I like looking back at how cute the girls were at different ages. 

On a Wednesday night in March, Ben pulled up the carpet, and I sat and pried out all of the staples and nails. We had a guy come in to get the rest of the tacks out and get started replacing the floor. 

Ben came up with a tile design, and worked on that and tweaked it for ages until he got it the way he wanted. He ordered the marble he wanted and the delivery driver had a crazy time trying to drop it off. At first he refused to bring the pallet up, and was going to leave it in front of the driveway, where we wouldn't be able to pull our cars in and out of the garage to get around it. Also, it was pouring rain, so I insisted he move it. I don't know if he was new to the job or not, but he was pretty young, and didn't seem to know how to use the pallet jack very well. I helped him get the pallet lifted back on, and then he pulled it over to the side, but tried to say it would be to heavy to get it up the driveway. I pointed out that if he pulled and I pushed, it would not be that hard, and he eventually agreed, reluctantly. Every time I went to push, he would scream to get out of the way. He kept thinking the pallet would slip off the jack, and I'd be run over. I tried to convince him I was fine, and it wasn't going anywhere, but he would not pull it with me there. Finally, 2 neighbors that were waiting for him to move the truck so they could get out of the neighborhood jumped out of their cars and said they would help push the pallet. He said fine, and sure enough the pallet jack worked like it was supposed to, and the tile made it up to the garage in mere moments. He then pulled his truck up into the driveway so the neighbors could get by, and then tried to back out, which was a whole other fiasco. We had road work going on, and a section in front of my neighbor's house had been done the day before, with traffic cones surrounding it. He could not get around those cones, and after an 18-point turn, they were all smashed up and blackened. He got out of the truck because one of the cones was stuck up under his truck. We could not get it out, it was pretty wedged. I went to pick up the remaining cones, and he got a little huffy. He said, "I'll take care of it", and snatched them away from me and put them in his truck. Then he got the truck straightened out and then put the smashed up cones back on the road. He refused his tip and drove off. I stood in the rain for a minute just laughing in disbelief, poor guy. 

Once the marble was delivered, we were ready to get started, and the tile guy came back out. He worked by himself, and super fast. I can not believe how quickly he got it laid, and he was a true perfectionist. He called me in several times to make sure I was ok with the way he made the seams match up etc. I didn't mention that I couldn't even see a difference, and never would have noticed the seams. Ben's measurements ended up being slightly off, and he made adjustments as needed so that the design would come out right and look perfect. 

Ben kept on asking me for updates, so I have plenty of pictures of the progress as it all came together. 

Because of the measurements being off, we ended up short 3 of the 18X18 tiles. Apparently you can't just go out and buy more white carerra marble. When I finally tracked down a box, it didn't not quite match up, so we returned those, and had to order again from the original supplier so it could be from the same slab as what we started with. Of course that took more than a week to get here, and our tile guy, Daniel agreed to come back to finish up once it was here. He wouldn't even let us pay him for the work he'd already completed. 

The week of Easter the tile was delivered. I guess it made sense to someone to put a small box of 6 tiles onto and entire pallet. It was taped securely into place, and then wrapped all up. It looked like an empty pallet with nothing on it. When the delivery driver showed up (a different driver), he got back into his truck to grab the pallet, and as he pulled it out, we made eye contact, and then both just started laughing. It seemed so ridiculous. I had to get a picture to show Ben the empty looking pallet sitting in the driveway. Ben has made use of the pallet as a bike rack, ball bin, and swim toys bin in the garage, so I guess it's ok that they sent it this way, though I'm sure we could have paid less shipping if they had found a different way to send it. 

The new tiles matched up perfectly when Daniel came back. 

All finished up. It's amazing to me that Ben just sat down and drew this out, and now it's on our floor looking spectacular. I am not a visualizer, so it's extremely impressive to me. One of the guys that came out to give us a tile quote tried to talk us out of the medallion. Ben insisted on having it, and I'm glad because I think it turned out beautifully. 

The tile came out the exact same height as the wood floor, just as promised. 

I wanted to repaint the lower half of the wall, and leave the beige stripes above. I was going to do black or charcoal gray, but when we went to get paint, Ben talked me into this lovely blue, and I am very pleased with it. I think the room feels happier. 

You'd think I would have painted before the tile went in, but nope, I did it after the perfect, really expensive floor was installed. It's the most nervous I've ever been about painting. 

The new table was a bit of an adventure as well. The table arrived with pieces broken off, and all scratched up, so we requested a replacement. We waited weeks and it finally arrived. It was round. They replaced a rectangle dining table with a round table, so we refused the shipment and had them re send a new table. We were also missing a few pieces for assembly. When Ben started putting together the chairs, we were missing pieces and some of those were damaged as well. We were able to get the 6 side chairs put together, and just needed the pieces for the arm chairs. So a whole new set of chairs was sent, and I told the guys just to bring in the 2 arm chairs, and send the rest back. One of the chairs was all smashed, but we were able to take the parts we needed to put together the original ones. We boxed all the broken stuff up, and sent it back. When the replacement table came, they sent a whole set of chairs again. Luckily I caught them when they had only brought in 2 chair boxes, and told them we didn't want any more chairs, just the table. Then they tried to not take the other damaged table, but I talked them into it. They also weren't going to unbox anything, but I begged them to unbox and take all the packaging away. I guess they felt badly for me when I told them the whole story. Long story short, I don't recommend purchasing furniture from Overstock.com. Lesson learned. Ben went to leave a review on their website, and saw a complaint from the end of last year. It sounded like all of the exact same damage as the furniture we received. We are 90% sure that they sent us a set that had been returned damaged. In our multiple communications with them, we learned that we should have received brand new items, not someone's refused crap. We eventually had our furniture all in tact after 2 months of phone calls, emails, refunds, and credits. 

One of the things we used our credit for was these white curtains. Imagine our surprise when they arrived with a giant black smudge on the front of one of the panels. UGH! We were fairly annoyed to have to return those for replacement and more credit. It's hard to want to use the credit for anything because who knows what condition it will arrive in?

Ben took me to the store to pic out decor, but he didn't really need me. We ended up going with everything he picked out. I got a picture today, with the fall decorations, but normally there is a different table runner, and a nice sculpture. I'll have to get a picture of that another time.