Pink & Gold Holiday Dining Room

It's been so fun decorating our first home for Christmas this year! We've grown to a full four Christmas trees: one in the living room, one on the front porch, one in the guest room, and one in the dining room. Last year, the dining room tree was the gold spray painted one featuring our wedding ornaments. This year, we have two new nine foot trees for the living and dining rooms, so I really decided to change things up.

I've put all of the unique ornaments on our main tree in the living room with a red tartan ribbon in an effort to tie in the McAfee family tartan, and decided to do just pink and gold ornaments in the dining room to coordinate with our funky multi-colored rug. The pink and gold ornaments are a mix of my great grandmother's hot pink Shiny Brights, newer gold Shiny Brights, and pink and gold shatter proof ornaments {thanks, animals}. 

Our centerpiece was an awesome Black Friday find from Kirklands! I thought the gold accented burlap ribbon would tie in nicely with the small bit of burlap on our main tree, and the pair of antlers from CJM's first deer of the season at the top of our main tree...pictures coming next!

Home Tour | Dining

How is it August? And how did my dining room of all places become my favorite room in the house? Y'all. For reals. It's definitely been the most "work in progress" space of our home because we haven't had a formal dining room yet as somewhat recent grads/young professionals. But in searching for a home that would allow for entertaining, a formal dining room was important to me. I have quite a bit of furniture, and my mother did too, so I knew we would not have a problem filling the space. 

I wanted the room to be a darker gray that compliments the living room. After finding the perfect paint color, it became obvious to me that the curio cabinet needed to be painted bright white {before and after post soon!}, with complimentary bright upholstery on the chairs. Then I added the four white matted picture frames on one wall, and a large wedding canvas on the other between the large windows. The room was coming together, but it didn't quite feel complete. 

CJM had requested a pop of color for this room, so I began looking for a pink and gray rug to coordinate with the china in the curio. I actually found this one just last week but couldn't justify the price tag! We also tried two or three different styles of curtains but couldn't find one we loved. So the dining room kind of sat, incomplete, but pretty. 

On Saturday, we wandered into Ollie's after sushi {if you haven't been to Ollie's, it's so fun to visit and see all the absolutely random stuff they have}. They always have a ton of rugs, so we just started flipping through some of the giant stacks and this funky rug was the third one we saw! I kind of stopped and went, "Hmmm...that's interesting" and kept flipping. It was pink, and had some gray and other colors that would work with the rest of the house but it was LOUD. And just really not the style of the room at all. But it stuck with me.

 We just decided to grab it and try it out. Before it was even down fully, I knew I loved it. Both CJM and I walked around all Saturday, stopping to stare into the room, and saying "Oh, I really love it." It's so funky. And different. But it has created just the coolest vibe in that room! I love the contrast of the traditional pieces and the various patterns on the chairs and the rug. It definitely ties in all of the gray and the colors from our wedding photos. Now I'm feeling like we don't even need curtains, but may just need to upgrade to plantation shutters sometime in the future for the windows.