The Chloran House Tour: The Dining Room

And so the house tour begins! I’ve been talking about interior posts since way, way, way before we actually moved in to the new pad, and now we’ve been knocking about here for nearly a month, it’s about bloody time I started sharing some of our decor with you.

To kick things off we’re starting with the dining room, which, admittedly, may seem like an odd place to start. Our dining room was actually intended to be an office, since I knew I would never be able to properly work upstairs without eventually wondering down for a “cup of tea” and never going back. Thing is we were really set on having a dining space too, since Keiran is a social butterfly and I love having communal dinners, so one of the two had to give.

Given that as soon as we moved in I started working from the sofa and coffee table, the dining function won. And I knew exactly what I wanted – I’ve stolen the free wifi from enough hipster coffee shops in my lifetime to know that benches and hairpin legs are the way to go. We scoured the internet looking for table and bench sets, but they were coming in at least £600+ and considering we were kitting out a whole house from scratch, that was way too pricey. Next up was Etsy, but that didn’t throw up any gems, so in a last ditch attempt I moved over to eBay to see if anybody was flogging their set second hand.

But I found something even better. A lovely gent by the name of Jack was offering to build the table and bench set from scratch, to the exact dimensions and colour finish that we wanted. We ended up going for a light wash wood (in hindsight I might have gone for something darker, but I still love this) with two benches small enough to slide underneath if we needed the extra space, and the whole thing came to £350 including delivery. Considering the piece is unique to us (although I know ~ everybody ~ on God’s green earth has this kind of dining set up now) and we were able to have it made to the precise size we wanted, that’s a bloody good deal.

The two chairs at each end of the table came from ASDA George, which is an interiors spot that I urge you not to underestimate. Yes, you will have to do some wading through rainbow coloured bunny bed sheets, but occasionally you’ll stumble across a gem and the price points are extremely reasonable.

All of the prints are from Desenio, who also stock the right sized frames in three to four colour ways so you can order the whole shebang at once without having to scour TK Maxx or Google “what size in cm in A2?”. The wine holder was a lovely gift from Keiran’s Mum and Sister, which, if I’m right, they found at Oliver Bonas. All the other knick-knacks I’ve picked up over the past year from local shops and the usual suspects such as Urban Outfitters.

Tableware time! The plates came in a larger dining set from Next, which included side plates and bowls too for a not too bad £40. Knives and forks are assorted from God knows where because who pays that much attention to cutlery (I feel like I will swallow these words in about 5 months when I’ve sourced the finest hand-made spoons from the outer hedbrides, sent by pigeon mail), and the giant wine glasses and champers flutes are from IKEA.

Both the linen napkins and the two difference placemats were nabbed from Zara Home; now, at this point, you might notice the black and white woven ones looking slightly worse for wear. Well, I popped them in the wash last week because Keiran spilled pasta sauce on them (of course), and they literally unravelled. I opened the washing machine and – oh. But panic ye not – I grabbed a pair of scissors, did a bit of trimming and they are (almost) as good as new! Don’t say I don’t do DIY.

And that, in a nutshell, is our dining room! Admittedly, it very rarely looks this tidy and well put together; most of the time half of the table is taken up with fresh-out-of-the-machine-washing, and Keir and I are huddled in a corner, chomping on pizza and showing each other the best memes we’ve found on Reddit. Nonetheless, it’s a lovely little space and we’re chuffed with how it’s come together. Let me know what you think in the comments down below, and if I’ve forgotten to list anything, come and pester me on Twitter or Instagram!

Until next time lovelies x

P.S. If you hadn’t guessed, Chloran = Chloe x Keiran. A classic.