Dining Room Makover Reveal

See the original dining room here.  The fabric for the chairs arrived on Saturday.  I had gone out for the morning, and when I returned, there it was sitting on my doorstep.  I was hoping that the linen for the drapes and the tropical print for the chairs matched a little better.  The linen leans toward a reddish brown.  The tropical print has more golden tones.  I think it works though, and I am happy to have this space all put together.  I love linen for drapes.  It is opaque enough for privacy, but looks airy and dances in the breeze.   

 My DH kindly helped me with recovering the chair cushions.  I really don't think I could have done this by myself.  It took both hands alone to stretch the fabric.  He then would staple it down for me.  I cannot tell you how many times his staple gun misfired, didn't fire at all, or got jammed.  But he kept a smile on his face the whole time.  I used some lime green duct tape to cover the raw edges under the chairs.  It's all I had on hand and I'm all for using what you already have in the junk drawer if you can!  The fabric is an indoor/outdoor polyester, so I am expecting it to clean up nicely.  However, if tomato sauce won't come out, don't you think it will blend in perfectly ;)  

The linen curtains were all about "power" sewing.  All I had to do was cut each curtain panel the proper length then hem all four sides.  I gave the bottom of the curtains a 3.5" hem and the top a 1" hem.  The most important and time consuming part was cutting each panel.  If I had just cut across this "wiggly" fabric, I was sure to have uneven hems.  To avoid that, I measured my panel length along the selvage and made a snip.  Then I pulled a thread in the fabric to make a "snag".  I then cut along this snag.  That way my fabric stayed on grain and equal lengths.  I like the look of drapes that pool at the bottom.  So I cut the panels for the sliding glass door extra long.  My sister gave me the lovely tulip vase in the center of the table and it is filled with tuberose.  I wish I could share the scent with you.  It's simply heavenly.