A Mega Life Update and A Simple & Chic Dining Room Refresh!

Chairs / Rug / Chandeliers / Throw Blanket / “Hello” Prints

Good morning!!! Happy WEDNESDAY! Still sitting in bed this morning writing this post with a Starbuck’s sweet cream cold brew with a splash of almond milk (MY FAVE!) on the nightstand that John brought me a little while ago. Sitting here in the guest bedroom of John’s best couple friend’s home actually! The girlies spend every other Wednesday with their Dad so it’s my “cabin days” week! Yep, life is all over the place right now. In a really good, really exciting kind of way.

I feel like I need to do a little explaining. I have this sneaking suspicion that some of y’all on social feel like I am hiding a little something or am holding back details. Let’s just say that last November/December John and I made the DECISION to move mega forward while simultaneously deciding to work life a little backwards. And NO, I am NOOOOT pregnant! LOLOL. I got so many messages on Instagram last night when I posted about John having sold his home saying they felt like they were always anxiously awaiting “the next episode” ;-). LOL.

SO here’s the deal… we are working the next steps of our relationship rather backwards. On purpose. Life as an almost 40-something with four combined kiddos is well… really confusing. Add in the fact that I am so excited about it all that I just can’t hold it in and I post random things on IG. BUT it’s just weird and impossible to explain. Particularly on a few IG story slides. There I said it. 😉 I PROMISE I am going to share ALLLL the details in several posts coming up but basically… we started chatting very seriously about the future back in November. A chat very much needed for a lot of reasons. For one, we had a rather large distance between us… 1.5 hours with each of our two kiddos going to school kind of far away from one another. And secondly, we have moved our relationship forward at every step along the way with our four kiddos at the top of the list thus making life changes and big life decisions something that required chats with all of us and not just two of us. Making life changes a decision rather than a surprise. We truly consider it the six of us now.

So we prayed about it a LOT. And then one day right before Thanksgiving, John got a cold call on his home. His beautiful home on the lake that he’d thus far never considered parting with that also just so happened to be in a small gated community. How they found his home to even cold call is SOOOOO RANDOM. We will just call that God. So he thought about it. A LOT. And we talked and prayed and talked some more. And somewhere along the way, we both decided that since we were ready for that big next step in our relationship, that the first big step we’d thus far never considered was for him to sell his home. God knows what he is doing and I trust that one million percent. So back in December, John sold his home. Here’s a little pic of us on the very last day when we finished up moving him out…

That sale then started lots of conversations between him and his boys and between Addie and I as well. As I will chat about in future posts, I OF COURSE consider Winnie just as much but she’s young and loves everyone and everything and as you can see on social, is just happy to be here! So in all of this, I have chosen to not discuss everything with her just yet. Some things but not everything. I just think that the “normal” order of things will make more sense to her sweet little eight year old self. Then came Christmas time when sweet John asked Addie for her blessing on our future. I tear up big tears writing that out. Addie has had a really hard time. Very early on when things first happened we made a pact. That I would never bring on any life “surprises” and that I would keep her apprised of everything I could. She’d had enough of that and that became very clear to John very early on as well. Addie wanted to meet everyone I dated and to know everything I was doing always. And given everything, I respected and understood and have done my best to do so. Every child moving out of divorce and into their parents dating lives handles things soooo differently so what’s best for one child in one situation may be vastly different to another. For John, he kind of came about things from the very opposite perspective. In all of his single years, he had never introduced his boys to another woman. His boys were very young when he divorced and so that had been his choice in moving forward. It took him a couple of months to introduce me to his boys and I understood and respected that one million precent!

See… this is all so much! LOL. So, John asked Addie for her blessing and my heart exploded. She beamed from ear to ear and immediately started talking about how she wanted to help plan our engagement and wedding and everything in between. She ADORES John and his boys and for that I am forever thankful. Not sure how we would be able to do this all without four kiddos who genuinely love one another now. So that’s where we are folks! Addie, Ab and John have been up to lots of somethings lately and we continue to plot and plan things out. John has been living partly with friends and partly at the cabin. We do not intend on fully live together until we are married. We have the date, the place and everything in between planned but like I said, I am waiting for “step one” to roll out the details. He really wanted to make the actual proposal as much of a “surprise” as possible now that we’ve dotted all of our I’s and crossed all of our T’s so it looks like y’all are anxiously awaiting EXACTLY what I am! Let’s just say that 2021 is the year for a brand new beginning and I. CANNOT. WAIT.

Whew! That intro was a little longer than I expected! I have to say though that I am LOVING being back to a consistent blog schedule and being at a point in life once again where I feel like I can share life. Honestly now feeling that I can share real life more than ever before. So without further chatting… today’s post is my “brand new” dining room! Given everything I said above, I decided to use this new life beginning as an opportunity to redo much of my home. Some rooms will be seeing a lot of change and some just a little refresh. Just trying to make it feel somewhat “new” and “fresh” for this new life and future new fam.

For my dining room as you will see, I didn’t do too much of a change-up. Just wanted to create a really sleek, sophisticated, neutral background for all of the colorful rooms surrounding the open space. The main change came with ordering six of these GORGEOUS Restoration Hardware chairs. I chose their Ellison Track Arm Fabric Armchair in the Perennials Performance Classic Linen Weave in WHITE with casters. And I LOOOOOVE THEM! They’re the perfect size for the space and the casters are such a fun and functional addition. P.S. If you are an AW DESIGN client, we extend discounts on all RH products (all most every other place including AW products) to our clients. Sometimes this even negates our design fees with projects!

Next up, ACCESSORIES! I completely reaccessorized the space using almost all things Addison’s Wonderland HOME! The lamp, crazy soft reversible throw blanket, tassel garland and rattan candle holder are all available online and in store if you are local. I always feel that the key to interior design is layering textures and each of these pieces help to do just that! I also snagged this gorgeous vase over the weekend with John in Asheville. The rug and chandeliers are also AW and have been in the room since I originally designed the space almost five years ago now. The table base is from the Anthropologie outlet and the marble top was custom made. The drapery rods and hardware are from Kirsch which has THE MOST GORGEOUS drapery hardware products and the curtains were custom made. The wallpaper is also AW and the cabinet was from HomeGoods. Here is the space TODAY!