Mid-Mod Dining Room

[Katie here.]

We're beginning to get another room together over here at our atomic ranch. We finally located our perfect dining chairs, which were the final key to the room.

So now I'm ready to share the room, even though we need to rethink the rug and reupholster the chairs. We started by replacing this eyesore of a light fixture:

With this one:

(That was one of my Christmas presents from the husband. Thanks, husband!) So the room looks like this all together. The window, which you can't see, is on the wall to the right. Pardon the fishy-eyedness of the photo.

One of the best features of this room is the built-in cabinetry and lighting:

There's a mirror installed between the upper and lower cabinets which generates a lot of light and an open feeling, too. But I had nothing to do with that—I inherited it from the awesome original designers of the house. 

I just dropped the dining chairs off for new upholstery. I considered doing it myself, and I'm sure that I could have done it. But lately I've been so crazy with work. I just found myself outsourcing something that actually seemed really fun so that I could just get work done and get to bed at a reasonable hour. (Yes, whining.) 

But seriously, I'm having trouble recapturing the slow life this spring. That's going to be a new goal . . . just as soon as this semester is over. 

I swear. 

-- Katie Rose

The Perfect Atomic Chairs

[Katie Here.]

As I continue to embrace our mid-century ranch, I've been searching for the perfect dining room chairs. I discovered that you can buy reproductions on sites like Thrive, which actually delights me to no end, but frankly we can't afford to buy the reproductions. Plus, I just knew if we hunted long enough, we would find something on Craigslist. 

Goldmine. 

For $300, we were able to buy these six chairs, two captain's style (with arms, below) and four armless. Check out the curves on the back legs. Check out the inlay on the back panel. 

See the curves on the arms of the captain chair? I'm so in love with these chairs. 

I put the captain's chairs in the living room next to the console. We don't have room for them around our dining table if we don't have the leaf in. 

Next project: Reupholstering the seats of the chairs. I found a great tutorial on This Old House, here.

Any fabric recommendations? Online shops to buy period-style fabrics from?

FYI, for locals in the Durham/Chapel Hill area, I bought the chairs from the good folks at Revived.

- Katie Rose