What My Dining Room Currently Looks Like

Closeup of candlesticks and plants on my dining room table

Welcome back, everyone! Has quarantine made any of you crazy yet? The endless days spent at home will be coming to an end for me soon. I'll be returning to my job at Starbucks next week (although I'm not 100% certain I'm ready for it).

I don't know about all of you, but all the additional time spent at home lately has made me extra aware of the state of my apartment. Not that it's bad, by any means! But there's something about staring at the same walls every day for two months that makes you start thinking. Do I love this space? Is there something that could make it better? Is there something I've been wanting to try or do?

So far over the last couple of months, I have invested in some storage solutions for organizing my closet, finished off our empty entryway with a picture ledge and a place to hang coats and other items (more on that soon!), and have begun dreaming up ideas for our balcony. I want an herb garden and Ryan wants to grow tomatoes, potatoes, and get a grill. The change that I am most excited about, however, has been the addition of some new art in our dining room!

The space feels so much more polished now than it did before. Let's talk a little bit more about the dining room:

The Dining Room Dilemma

The dining room is an area of the apartment that has been bothering me pretty much ever since we moved in. I love our cute little birch Ikea table and contrasting black chairs, but styling the wall has proven to be more of a challenge. It's nice and large with a good amount of natural light coming in from the window, a featured that can be really hard to come by in rental apartments. No matter what I did, however, the space just never really felt finished.

In the past, I've tried a variety of galley wall-type solutions, most recently the one shown here. There actually used to be another piece on this wall, but it fell down and I just never bothered to try and put it back up. I didn't really love the arrangement anyway, and as much as I love my little art collection it didn't feel right for this wall. I've felt for a long time that a single, large-scale piece of art would look really great.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that large-scale art is expensive, especially for someone as picky as me. I have seen people come up with really great, affordable finds from places like Home Goods and TJ Maxx, hI knew that such a piece was going to be an investment in my part. But like I said, there's something about staring at the same walls all day every day for months on end that really gets you thinking.

So one day, I finally made the big purchase.

My dining room setup with a gallery wall

Large-Scale Art for the Dining Room

Unboxing my horse photography print from Minted

Let me start by saying I've had my eye on this particular piece for several years. "All Is Quiet" by Jenni Kupelian is such a pretty photograph, from the colors all the way down to the details. I have contemplated multiple times purchasing it in a smaller, more affordable size, but deep down I knew this picture was made for a grand scale. I ended up getting it in 40" X 30", the second largest size available.

While I will grant that the gallery wall had more personality, I think this piece makes the dining room look so much more put together and, I don't know, refined. It looks truly amazing in this room, and I absolutely love it. This piece could look great in a variety of different spots, including above the bed if you have enough wall space (we don't have a headboard so we have plenty).

A fun fact I discovered while hanging this piece: our floors are NOT level. After hanging the picture and checking that it was level, I stepped away only to feel like the piece was completely crooked. I checked it again to ensure that it was indeed straight and then set the level down on the table, completely puzzled as to why the picture looked so off. That's when I saw it.

As it turns out, our floors are slightly slanted, causing our table to tilt at an angle and thus making the picture look crooked. We laid the level on the ground to see if it was the table or the floor that was off and, lo and behold, the floor had a distinct tilt. In the end I actually ended up tilting the picture ever so slightly to better match the angle of the table. It still doesn't completely match-- if I turned the picture to perfectly match the slope of the table it looks crooked on the wall in relation to the ceiling. At least now the picture doesn't look quite as off as it originally did. It's not ideal, but it's where we're at!

Candlesticks and planters on my dining table

So there you have it! My current dining room setup! Which one do you like better, the gallery wall or the equestrian art print?

For anyone interested in sources for any of the items, I've linked them for you below! Some of the products aren't available anymore, such as the candlestick holders and the coasters, but I've tried to find items that are similar. XOXO.