I’ve finally gotten around to tidying up and taking some pictures of our cabin-redecorating. This was a project that came to me after getting married and coming home to our apartment–nothing felt different and everything looked the same. We finally had all this fine china and no place worthy of eating on it. While fine china is not generally a part of my vision of cabin life, my husband and I do dream of owning a cabin as our first piece of real estate. This is at least several years down the road yet, but the inspiration was a great jumping off point for decorating our Chicago apartment with the cabin in mind.

Our dining room is the first transformation I’ll be sharing with you:

Before

Before, the dining room was actually our office!

After

The dining room. This change was relatively inexpensive. We traded up on our former formica 1960s table for this Milo Baughman Parsons at a loss of $100. The chairs are outdoor bistro chairs from IKEA, $15/each. The credenza was a midcentury piece bought on craigslist for $125 and holds all of our china. The painting above it was $18 at a thrift store, I repainted the frame and added the letters on a whim. The lamps are also IKEA, $6/each, plus grey linen lampshades from Restoration Hardware, $5/each (on super sale). The framed maps are from the National Geological Survey and were about $8/each; the frames are IKEA, $20/each. The mounted antlers are a purchase from an auction, and were $15/each. We painted the room grey (a color I’m currently obsessed with), Olympic Thin Ice–I don’t like the name, but it is a true shade of grey, no blue or purple or brown in it to my eye.

It feels so much more grown up!