Dining Room Dreams

I've been consumed with thoughts of a new chandelier for our dining room and of painting our dining room furniture lately.

Here's our dining room as is it right now:

Well this is actually an older picture. I've got drapes hung that match the living room drapes now. You get the idea.

This room has been puzzling me until recently. All of the furniture in this room (minus the bookcase against the side wall) was free. The table and chairs were given to us when The Boy's aunt moved to B.C. The "hutch" (as I like to call it) on the back wall was in our garage when we bought the house.
I thought we needed a new table and chairs at least, but I could not find ANYTHING I liked. Nothing. Anything new was too big and anything antique that I liked just seemed too similar to what we already had.
I was stumped.

Until my Mom showed me this picture from Canadian House and Home magazine:

This set is very similar in style to mine. What I love is the updated punchy colour of the chairs. I won't be covering the backs of mine with fabric though. Too country for my look, but this photo has inspired me to work with what we've got and paint our dining room furniture.
Here's what I'm thinking. Bright high gloss white on the table and for the chairs, Benjamin Moore's Florida Keys:

Hmmm...Florida Keys is actually much more sea green than this scan. This is far too blue.

The Brown (called Black Bean Soup) will be for the "hutch". I'll also be lining the back of the "hutch" in wallpaper. This design from Seabrook Designs British Tropical collection is currently stealing my heart.

This scan is actually showing too blue as well. This wallpaper is more aqua coloured.

The bookcase will be relocated elsewhere in the house to open up the room.

In my opinion the chandelier is hideous. Sure, there are worst chadeliers we could have inherited with our house, but I just despise this one. It's a boob-lamp with arms. Ugh.

I have been on an exhaustive search since we moved into our house for a replacement. At first I wanted a chandelier with a drum shade. Like this one:

Sorry, no link for this pic. I can't remember where I snagged it last year.

That thought was eventually nixed as I realized this is a pretty trendy look at the moment and I wasn't sure if I would love a fixture like this for more than a year or two. I was also concerned about blocking the view of the hutch on the far wall. I needed something airier.
Then I was leaning towards something more traditional and sparkly. I showed you this chandelier on my last post about the dining room.

This guy was found at Home Depot.

The Boy was very much against anything too sparkly. He was convinced it wouldn't fit with our bright, modern meets vintage vibe the rest of our house has going for it.
So in the end this option was nixed as well...

It wasn't until I was watching HGTV and saw an interior sporting a funky, retro inspired sputnik chandelier that the light bulb went off above my head (pun intended!!)!! Something mid-century modern would be the perfect foil to my painted table and chairs! So the search was on for a cool sputnik light.

It didn't take long for me to find this beauty on Z Gallerie:

They call it the Orbit Chandelier. I don't care what they call it! I want it! And better yet, The Boy loves it too! Plus! it's only $250 US! Score! We have a winner!
The only real problem is that Z Gallerie doesn't ship internationally, so when we purchase it we will have to ship it to the border and drive to pick it up. No Biggie. The Boy does this for car parts all the time.

So now we're just waiting until we can save up a little cash to put in our order. I'm soo excited!

What about you? Are you having decorating dreams about your space? Do share!

Lisa.xo