Hello friends!  Hope you have a great Friday.  It has been pretty low key around our house this week.   No projects this week for me.  I need to start working on a fall wreath for our front door.  Maybe I will do that tomorrow.  It has been in the 80s here where we live it sure doesn’t feel like fall around these parts.  It is officially fall and it sure feels like summer still.  

Welcome to my “Show me” post.   I have a request from one of my viewers to do the dining room table.  She wrote, “SOS! Will you show me your dining room table?  I can never find anything that I like for my centerpiece.  I love how you style your home and would love to see how you style your dining room table”.  I asked her if I could share, she didn’t mind as long as I showed my dining room table. ha!  I love receiving comments and I was so excited when I received a request.  So Sarah, here you go, just for you.

Boy….you had to pick the dining room table.  I have no problems decorating the table when I am  having guest over for dinner.  That usually means I have a theme and can decorate according to that theme.  On an every day setting I too had troubles. If your dining room is like ours, we hardly use that room, so once it gets decorated it stays like that until the Christmas season.  Whatever I put on the table for every day, it stays put all year around, which means I better love it!  Right?  In the past I had the traditional floral arrangement, I have had candles and even had a tray.  Shoot, I have had all three of those things at once on my table.  Good thing about Pinterest, google and Instagram to get ideas for styling your table.  

Choosing the right centerpiece for your table can be overwhelming, especially if you do not know exactly what you want.  Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself when thinking about your centerpiece for the dining room.  (These are some of the questions I tend to ask myself).

1. Do you want this centerpiece to be functional or just for decorations?
2. Do you want the centerpiece to be calming, glitzy or bold?
3. Do you want the centerpiece to be one piece or do you want multiple items to create the centerpiece?
4. Do you want a table cloth, runner or placemats?

Let me give you an example for each question.

Functional – taking a large dish or bowl filling it with fruit or something that you use on a daily basis to sit in the center of the table.
Decorations – taking a vase full of flowers and sitting it in the center of your table.

•        calming – staying with a neutral pallet and more nature décor
•        glitzy – go with more silver, gold and lots of sparkle
•        bold – you want to use a lot of color.

How many items do you want to use

• one item – placing an item in the center of the table – could be a large or small flower arrangement
• more than one item – using a flower arrangement and two sconces on each side of the arrangement.
• dressing your table with a runner, tablecloth and place mats or just leaving it bare.   This is a personal choice.    I actually like the look of it all.  I always put a tablecloth on our table when we are having dinner. It protects the table surface.  I actually have a table protector that I place on top of the table before I put the table cloth on just for protection.

Now that we discussed what questions to ask it is time to go shopping and find the pieces that will fit your idea.

Here is my table today.

I chose a table runner to place down in the center of the table.  I found this one at Bed, Bath and Beyond.   I like the pattern and the little tassel that is on the ends.  This runner is only 90″ in length, I really should have a longer one on this table.  I am not having any luck finding the right size I need in my area.  I might stumble on it one of these days.

I purchased two ceramic flower pots and two medium size faux topiary boxwood ball to place on top of each flower pot.  I found the two ceramic flower pots at Ross and the topiary balls at TjMaxx.

I purchased the two golden lantern cage pillar candle holders from TjMaxx.  Placed one on the table and the other one on top of this ceramic candle holder that I found at a thrift store and painted it the color of the ceramic flower pots.  Placed two candles in the center of the lanterns.  After posting this I am looking at the candle holder and wonder….should I have painted that gold to match the lantern?  What do you think?  Let me know in the comments or email me.

I placed the items down the center of my table on the runner.

One more look at the table all dressed up.

Let me take you back in January to show you our table as it was before.

Here is one of my tablescapes at Christmas time.

Can’t wait to see what you think about my table.  Please leave me a comment on my table decor.

Stay strong and stay blessed!
Terrie