Dining Room Make Over is Revealed

Lulu  gives the new dining room two thumbs up!

Travel back in time with me, Prairie Friends, to a more formal time when I had a dining room table and four, solemn, high-backed chairs.  Truthfully, the chairs were never filled with guests and the table was never adorned with turkey and twice baked potatoes.  (Refer back to blog on November 15th - "Prairie Grl Ditches Dining Room") 

The dining room table and chairs are now in storage.  The only china surviving the purge is my collection of Bobwhite dishes.  Everything else is Goodwill bound.  Smell ya later!

Originally I had planned to fill my dining room with bean bag chairs AND an art table.  Being a Pisces on an Aquarian cusp, I never thought to measure the dining room before ordering the Cozy Sacks  (made in the U.S. of A!).  SURPRISE!  The Cozy Sacks take up the entire dining room footprint.  Another surprise was the cow print cozy sack,  I thought I'd ordered zebra.  I was going to return it, but that seemed like too much effort - considering how huge and puffy they are.  Besides, I live in Wisconsin and I already have a zebra print chair.  

I moved one of the kids' bookcases into the space.  Notice the crate of Christmas books, basket of stuffed animals, and the encroaching cow sack.  

The china hutch is now the game hutch.  I am still gathering up games that have been squirreled around the house.  Cozy Sacks are a great place to play Battleship and Guess Who.  I still haven't emptied out the drawers of abandoned cameras and limp placemats.  But not even the skilled decorator, Nate Berkus, could tell that from this photo. 

Lulu has her brother, Len, in a headlock.

Has the transition from dining room to reading room been all smiles and Kodak moments?  Nope.  I have to warn you that Cozy Sacks make kids wrestle. And wrestle.  And wrestle. Cozy Sacks also encourage children to leap off of chairs and sofas into the pillowy goodness.  I can recall at least three times threatening to sell the cozy sacks on eBay.   

Wrestling and leaping aside, I have to go back to my original intention - creating a place where my kids would want to read.  The intention to create meaningful space out of wasted space.  The intention to look at things differently.  Gus says he has been having a hard time sleeping because he wants to be reading or chilling in the dining room.  Gee.  He never said that before the dining room make over.

"Don't even think about sitting on my
cozy sack..."

Buddy would like to remind you that December is national "Read a New Book" month - cozy sack optional, of course.

Might I suggest . . .

Prairie Eydie