Almost a Dining Room

When I moved into the house I gave myself a one month deadline for a housewarming party.  I needed something to keep me unpacking on week 3. I knew it wouldn't be all perfect but it would be close enough that people could see my vision for the house.

The one low point was the dining room.  Well more precisely that people couldn't really tell that it was supposed to be the dining room.  I wonder why.  It's the first room you see from the entry hall, and it had a large dresser sitting in it, no table, no chairs.  A sad reflection of failed attempts by the movers to get the dresser up the stairs.


Eventually friends suggested to me that the dresser would be perfect in the entry hall.  A dresser in an entry hall?  Yes, apparently this is very common and I am the only one who didn't realize this.  You just need to call it a chest of drawers instead. And they were right; it works perfectly there as you can see.

Now I'm almost to a functional dining room.  Drapes hung on one window.  And a new dining table that just arrived.  It's made from reclaimed antique boards and with a cool pattern from the painted staircase it was originally a part of.  Kind of antique and modern at the same time.

So that leaves a modern chandelier and chairs.  What chairs to buy, hmmm.  I'm going for an eclectic look of mixing modern in with my antiques.  Perhaps you can help with the chair dilemma?  With the light drapes I was originally thinking modern dark brown chairs (either upholstered or leather) to kind of blend into the background and keep the visual impact of the table.  But I'm wondering if I should have gone with dark drapes that blend, and cream or white chairs around the table.   Any decorators reading out there?  Thoughts anyone?