Window shopping for dining room chairs has always been fun and easy. I’ve filled Pinterest boards with different inspirational dining rooms and chair options, But of course, now that I’m actually ready with an envelope of real, live, dirty greenbacks, I can’t make up my mind to save my life!

Why is it so difficult for me to decide on dining room chairs? I have completely changed my mind from the last time we discussed this. I think I’m having commitment issues. But like I said before, if we’re going to get new chairs, I’d really like them to be chairs we’ll have around for a very, very long time- if not forever! You guys brought up a good point, though. If we’re going to invest in forever chairs, I probably shouldn’t be crunching number so tightly. What’s a few more hundred dollars for a real dining room investment? (I’ll tell you what a few hundred dollars are- they’re about half a year’s worth of home improvement savings!) But I’ve decided to wait to take the dining room chair plunge, and really settle on a set that we truly love.

Here are the top contenders right now- of course, the one I love the most (this white spoke dining chair) is the most expensive. But I’m crossing my fingers for a sale. Oh- and while we’re talking about my dining room improvements, check out this ceiling medallion DIY I shared at A Beautiful Mess today!

I love this spoke dining chair from West Elm, because it has the traditional feeling of a spindle-back windsor chair, but the tapered style of the back lends the chair a bit of a funky vibe. It would be easy to wipe clean, and its more substantial size would stand up well against our large farmhouse table. This chair is a winner- but we’ll be saving quite a bit longer to take home a set of six.

The idea of having a grouping of these Panton style dining chairs alongside our rustic farmhouse table seems like a perfect contrast to me. I love the sleek style and mod design of these chairs, but they are a bit bulky, visually speaking, and the knock-offs that I actually can afford (The originals are more than $300, and I prefer the West Elm chair for that price.) have this weird webbing behind the curve of the seat, to give the weaker material extra support. The chair really doesn’t look so elegant with the webbing, so I’m not so sure I’d like to have the Panton knock-offs lined up in a row at our dining room table. Maybe somewhere else in our home?

This modern sleigh chair reminds me of a cross between the Panton chair above, and the gorgeous Saarinen tulip chair that I shared in my last dining room chair post. I love its sleek and mod vibes, and that it’s much airier that the clunky looking Panton chair. The cushion can be removed for cleaning and even recovered- which would be a great way to change up the look and add pattern to our dining room. But I’m just afraid that this style is such a statement that I’ll grow tired of it as the years progress. Also, would its small frame not work well with our bulky table? And could I ever commit to such a funky chair? I’m just not sure!

So what do you all think? I have a while to think about all of our options, because right now we’ve decided to save for six of the West Elm spoke chairs (option one), which will take a bit of time, unfortunately. Waiting is so difficult sometimes, but at least when the time comes, I’ll know with confidence which chair we want. Or will I?

Image sources: first dining room  image by Lena Ostling for Hus & Hem via Bright Bazaar Blog, second image by Barry Calhoun for Style at Home, last image by Daniel Mahon of Kirra Jamison & Dane Lovett’s home via The Design Files.

Hey guys! I’m hosting my very first ever Instagram flash sale tonight! Starting at 7PM EST, I’ll be listing these vintage home goods on my alternate Instagram account- MandiMakesRoom. Win a sale by being the first person to comment with your PayPal e-mail address, and then I’ll send you the invoice and ship off your goodies to your registered PayPal address. Prices will be listed in the photo description. Don’t have an Instagram account? Comment here with your PayPal e-mail address, and I’ll quote you a price if you’re faster than an Instagrammer.

What spurred on this most recent purge? We’re getting a new sofa next weekend! Wahoo!

Gallery walls can be these crazy intimidating monsters that either turn your home into a tacky mess or consume your every waking thought until your wall is perfect. Which it never is. So basically, they’re just monsters. It’s so tricky to do a gallery wall and do it right! But I knew that’s what I wanted to do on our T.V. wall, because let’s face it, T.V.s are big ugly black things that aren’t easily disguised in an otherwise white room. But a gallery wall can be a great solution for deemphasizing a T.V. So I embraced the monster.

The trick to helping a t.v. fit in nicely with a gallery wall is to balance it out with another bold, black piece in the arrangement. I considered buying a dark, graphic poster (and by graphic, I mean bold, not explicit…), but when it came down to it, I realized that this wall was going to look extremely busy if I didn’t start simplifying things. So instead of using a dark poster, I decided I would put a large black mat inside one of my thin 13×19 black frames, and keep it simple by cutting only a small section out of the mat to frame a little vintage snapshot.

I found this little photo of my dad posing in front of my grandparent’s family car back in ’62, and I knew it needed to be hanging on our wall. The photo is originally only about 3.5″ square, so I scanned it onto my computer and resized it to be about 6″ square, so it wouldn’t get completely lost in the gallery wall. Then I went to the store and bought a piece of dark gray (almost black) mat board to frame it out.

Here’s what you need to cut a photo mat:

• Photo
• Frame
• Mat board at least as large as the frame
• Craft blade
• Mat cutter (I found this freehand one for $10 and it works just fine!)
• Non-slip steel ruler
• Pencil
• Cutting Board 

Step One: Lay the glass from your photo frame onto the corner of your mat board, trace around it with a pencil, and then cut out the mat with a craft blade and steel ruler. Be sure to use a fresh blade for best results! I like a non-slip ruler for obvious reasons, but I know other people who dislike them because your blade can slide under the raised edge and make your cutting less accurate. I don’t think it’s a big deal in this instance, though.

Step Two: Draw the lines for where your mat will be cut. I made the cutting area 1/4″ smaller than the size of my image. I wanted the border to be equal around the photo on the bottom and sides of it, so I measured in from the outsides and bottom of the cut mat board.

Step Three: Place a new blade inside the freehand mat cutter by unscrewing the black knob and sliding the blade in until the rounded top of it reaches the line for the type of mat you are using. I am using a standard mat, so I tightly screwed in the blade to the line that says “STD.” If you are using a double thick mat (which would be absolutely luscious!), screw the blade tightly into the line that says “DBL.” Be sure the black knob is tightened as tight as you can get it, or it will move during cutting and really mess up your edge.

Step Four: Place your ruler along one of the lines you drew for the cutting border, and rest the mat cutter against the edge of the ruler. You will begin piercing the mat board 1/4″ above where the edge of your cutting line begins. After inserting the blade into the mat board, readjust the ruler if necessary before slowly dragging the mat cutter along its edge. Hold the ruler very firmly so that it doesn’t move during cutting, or else your cut edge will be wavy. This is where the non-slip backing of the ruler comes in handy!

Be very sure that you are cutting on the correct side of the line, which would be the inside of the square. If you are cutting from the outside of the area you are cutting out, then your mat will be cut in reverse. Think before you cut! I’ve made that mistake before and it’s unnecessary and frustrating.

After your mat is cut, place the photo behind it and use tape at the corners to keep it in place. Matt board is easily scuffed and marred, so be careful when transporting it from the store, and be extra careful when you’re working with it too. I put my freshly cut mat and photo behind the painstakingly cleaned glass of my frame before I came to the conclusion that the glare against the black and the glass was just the worst thing in the world. So I took out the glass, and now my mat isn’t protected, but I figured reprinting a photo and cutting the mat wouldn’t be half as bad as being aggravated by glare every time I glance up at the photo. Priorities.

I further simplified the gallery wall arrangement by removing the art that was previously in those two matching white 8×10 frames and filling them with these creepy eyes that were inspired by Twiggy and T.J. Eckleburg. I drew them digitally and just printed them out onto presentation paper to stick in the frames. Instead of putting a photo in the top right picture frame, I painted some card stock with fuchsia and orange acrylic paint and called it art.

In my opinion, gallery walls do need a little interest, as long as they’re not too busy. I don’t typically enjoy using all of the same frame and art styles, but I know when you mix it up, things can get really busy really fast. I found interest by mixing sizes, shapes, thicknesses of frames, and textures, but I kept the color scheme limited to neutrals, blues, and hues of orange. I balanced out the wood pieces (two wooden frames and the vintage sign) by hanging them caddy corner from each other, and I tried to do the same with other colors involved in the arrangement, like the blue found in both the Hammerpress Iron & Wine poster and the framed needlework piece. I also thought about balance with the placement of the white frames caddy corner from the white void that’s to the right of the television.  The yellow circles pop art piece and the little orange acrylic painting were similar enough in color that I thought they should be separate from each other for balance too.

I’m sneaky and arranged (and rearranged, and rearranged) all of my art in Photoshop to make sure everything would fit nicely, moving things around digitally before actually hammering nail holes in my wall. I was attempting to work with just the art I already owned, but when I had everything how I wanted it in Photoshop, there were some empty spots that still needed filled- like where the 2 8×10 white frames are now and where the little square frame is at the top right. I noted the size of the gaps and went out to the store to buy the frames to fill them. It cost me $25 total for the three frames (from Pat Catans and Marshalls), and the art I put inside was homemade/free, so I’d say I did a pretty good job compiling the gallery wall without running out and buying new things to beef it up. I was concerned about the open space to the right of the t.v., and thought about buying some art to fill it, but instead I just put a plant there and I really like how it looks. Now- to keep the plant alive!

I’ve been pinning gallery wall inspiration recently on Pinterest if you’d like to take a look at my “In My Home” board!