"My Personal Taste in Art" chapter 2, The dining room

After I finished my last post I spent time walking around the house and really looking at all the art and other items I have collected over the years.  It got me to thinking about each item and the story behind it.  There is history in each thing that I have on display in my home.  Some things were built by my father.  I have pots that were thrown by my mother.  There are all the paintings that I did.  All the yard sale and thrift store items that I have re-purposed bring back memories of time spent with good friends and my mother as we went out on Saturday mornings spending fun time together looking for bargains.  I also realize how much stuff I bought new and repainted as soon as I got it home.  I never let an item that I knew was perfect except for the color stop me from buying it.  Another realization I had is how little money I have spent on decorating my home.  I could call this series of posts "Decorating on a Shoestring Budget."  I love a good bargain and I love creating art.  What fun to combine them both and bring beauty into my home!

Now to give you a tour of my dining room.  The first photo shows the whole room  I took this picture standing in the kitchen looking into the dining room.

I'll go clockwise around the room.  Starting with the credenza which is something I DID NOT paint.  Everyone who sees it asks if I painted it.  The answer is no.  I bought this beautiful piece of furniture from our friends who lived across the street from us in AZ.  She is the same friend who gave me the dried artichokes that I mentioned in my last post.  These neighbors were moving to Idaho to be closer to family and were getting rid of most of their furniture and offered this piece to us for the price of $75.  They also included the statue of the lady with the flowing cape.  I love both of these items and they will always remind me of Dave and Nancy.  The grandfather clock was bought  in Michigan from the neighbors who live across the street here.  They were having a yard sale and sold us the clock for $10.  The key is missing so it doesn't run and is always at 12 o'clock but I don't care.  It is a perfect fit for that corner. The painting on the easel on the floor is my first version of "Study in Patchwork".  I painted it is AZ and had it hanging the hallway on the bedroom side of the house.

The painting over the credenza was also something I painted of our AZ house.  We had high ceilings and I had a large open space near our entertainment center.  I did this painting to fill that space. I call it "In Flight."  Here is a photo of it hanging in the AZ house.

Here is some pottery I have sitting on the credenza.  The vase and small pot were made by an artist friend I met not long after moving to MI.  She commissioned me to do a painting and I told her that instead of paying me for it would she be willing to barter.  She said yes and I chose these two items.  The small dish is a gift from one of my grand-daughters.  It is a perfect match to the pottery.

As we go around the room to the back wall of the dining room we find this small bench.  This holds many memories and has special meaning for me.   I took a woodworking class back in the late 70's and made this bench from a step between our house and the attached garage.  We removed the step when we converted the garage into a new kitchen.  We no longer needed the garage because Roger had built a new three car garage in the back of the house.  We tore out the wall between our old dining room and kitchen and made one large combined family room and dining room and converted the old garage into a new kitchen.   When we took the old steps out I saved this board and made the bench in the woodworking class.

Next are a few yard sale items that I painted. 

Notice the key hanging on the wall.  I got it at a yard sale shortly after we moved to MI.  I paid $5 for it.  It was bright blue.  I had no idea what I would do with it so stored it until we finally redid our dining room.  I knew it would look good there so I painted it to match the room.  Here is a close up of the plate and bowl and also a photo of the back of the plate which I painted in a different design.

I have another painting hanging in the far right corner of the room.  It is titled "Vase of Elegance". I painted it AZ and showed it a few times.  When it didn't sell I decided to keep it for myself.

The last photo is of our dining room table.  We brought the table and chairs from AZ.  The flower arrangement consists of silk flowers that have been in various arrangements over the years.  I wash them and recycle them into new arrangements as the mood strikes.  The container is a companion to the magazine container in the living room that I bought at Ross in Tucson.  It has has been repainted to change the original color.  The table runner was made by a friend from Tucson.  She and her husband came to visit us here in MI and she gave it as a gift for our home.  She is a great seamstress and makes many beautiful items.  I talked her into joining the artist guild in Tucson so she could show and sell her fabric art.  I love the table runner.  It is so elegant.  It is the finishing touch for the room.

My next post in this series will feature the kitchen.  It may be awhile before I have time to do the posting.  I just got a commission to do a painting from a customer from California so will be working on that for awhile.