Dining Room Progress: DIY Dining Table + New Lighting and Chairs

Just wanted to share a quick update on what we've been doing to turn our empty dining room into a usable room by Christmas!

Last month I shared our vision for the dining room and some inspiration photos. Well, since then I've been concentrating on building the dining room table, which is a knock off of the Salvaged Wood Beam Table from Restoration Hardware. I used plans from Ana White (although my table is a foot longer than the plans) and also referenced the build notes and tips on Shanty 2 Chic to make sure I was doing everything right. This was only the second piece of furniture I've built by myself, and although it's not 100% perfect (mostly due to warped wood), I'm really happy with it so far.

I won't go into a huge amount of detail on the build process, because it is covered really well in Whitney's post that I linked to above. Just a few progress shots of the build...like the cut 4x4s for the legs. Fun fact about 4x4s in our area, Lowes and Home Depot don't stock untreated 4x4s for some reason. So I had to call around to multiple lumber yards to find one that had the untreated 4x4s. And then when we got there, there were only about 10 to choose from, so I had to make do with the least-warped ones I could find.

Even with some warped wood to deal with though, the frame came together pretty easily. Note that I said easily, not quickly! I am still super slow at carpentry, especially when it comes to screwing in large pocket screws--my arms and shoulders were sore for days. In this picture you can see that I followed Whitney's suggestion to use Gorilla Tape instead of clamps on the diagonal pieces, which worked wonderfully. However, one place where I did deviate from the plans is I flipped the table base upside down to screw the diagonals in from the bottom, instead of down through the top, as it was in the plans. I wanted to make sure that I had no screws showing that I'd have to patch with wood filler, because I'm still having issues in a few spots from the wood filler on the coffee table I finished last month (which I'll get around to posting about at some point).

And the completed table base, other than the side 2x4s that the table top will be screwed into. Yes, our garage is a mess. Just keeping it real, building furniture isn't a very clean and tidy activity!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake Martini and Pineapple Cherry Cobbler

I haven't done a recipe post for a while, even though I've still been trying new things and cooking almost every night of the week. But making food look good enough to photograph is usually too much trouble, especially on a week night.

But today I wanted to share two quick things, since it doesn't really matter so much what they look like!

First, a Pineapple Upside Down Cake Martini. A few months ago I tried one at a local restaurant, and I've been craving it ever since. So I set out to figure out their recipe, and it turns out it is incredibly simple and just as yummy as I remembered. Only three ingredients, Cake flavored Vodka (my first time trying it, and it is pretty amazing. Totally tastes like cake.), Grenadine and pineapple juice.

New Roof!

We knew when we bought out house about a year and a half ago that a new roof would be needed in the not to distant future. And late last week, we finally took the (expensive!) plunge.

First, some "before" photos.

Gratuitous street shot to show my pretty fall mums in the mailbox planter I made this summer