Thrifted Dining Room Decor

Today, I'm sharing my thrifted dining room decor...and helping launch a new series with some of my favorite bloggers! We're all here to tell you that "stylish" definitely doesn't have to be spendy or time-consuming. Join us the second Wednesday of every month for our thrifty decorating ideas.

I am super excited about today's post. My friend, Julie of redheadcandecorate.com, (we've been bloggy buddies for like four years now...wow!), came up with this brilliant team of gals and I was super honored to be a part of it. We're all sharing various ideas about thrifted decor...from simple to somewhat elaborate. From cheap to even cheaper. And from ugly to beautiful...lots of fun makeovers (or even as is projects) for you to grab ideas from. And my thrifted dining room decor is kicking it off here on ISBMTF.

What a fun group, huh? Love all of these bloggers. It's definitely a party!
At the end of the post, you can find the links to all their thrifty decor ideas, too.

I've mentioned this a few times, but our new house has heaps more wall space to fill up than our old house. And I'm not one to go broke on wall decor. I either make it, Craigslist it, or thrift it. Or...poke around my parents' shed. Today's post has a little of all those things. The main "anchor" holding this whole mess together is an old iron crib headboard. My favorite part? This was my grandmother's baby bed...it's over 100 years old. 

This was the condition it arrived to my house in...with instructions from my dad to "get current on your Tetanus shot before messin' with this thing". And by current, I'm sure he meant...use my best work gloves, right? Because have you seen those Tetanus needles? Yowza. 

I honestly do have plans to use the other pieces as well, but for now, I've just grabbed one of the headboard ends (or whatever the heck they're called on a baby bed).

I've honestly been pining away to get my hands on this bed for 16 years. The summer of 2000, my mom's brother (a life-long bachelor) passed away very unexpectedly. He had no other family besides us and lived in the family's 100+ year old home in San Antonio. Without air conditioning. (Did I mention it was south Texas in the middle of the summer?) That was one of those summers that will forever be etched in my mind. He was also a bit of a recluse and hoarder, so none of us had actually been in his home in over 20 years...he always came to us. The home was wildly eclectic, sweltering, filled to the brim with thousands of family treasures, sweltering, a mess, sweltering, and just...kind of a really tough situation. While the sadness of the situation was evident in all we did, we also just had to get down to business and clean that place out. My mother had no desire to keep the home (he had remodeled it significantly in the 50+ years he owned it), so the task was just to clean it and get it on the market. It was an every-weekend, all hands on deck with all of my brothers and sister-in-law, a major summer ordeal. Did I mention it was brutally sweltering?

In the enormous shed behind the home, besides an actual trolley car (yes, a trolley car...you can now see it from time to time on display in the Witte Museum in SA), we found claw foot tubs, machinery parts, artwork...and this baby bed carefully placed up in the rafters. We realized quickly it was our grandmother's baby bed by the dating on it (none of us siblings were ever able to meet her...she died in a car wreck when she was 42.) I loved that bed. Even back then, I liked old, rusty stuff with loads of character.

My mom wanted it for herself, so I knew not to even ask for it. She wanted to restore it.

Fast forward to now...after that baby bed had been moved from San Antonio to Austin, to my parents' current home in Marble Falls, to my home in Harker Heights. Mom never could bring herself to mess with the thing...it's soooo rusty. It's literally been moved from shed to shed to shed. 

So, she asked if I had wanted it before she (ahem) got rid of it.

Ummmmm. Of course. 

I cleaned it up with (MY GLOVES...LOL!), steel wool, a rag, and a coat of clear sealer.
I didn't want to alter the patina of it at all. 

Then, my sweet grandmother's baby bed was perched up on my red buffet in our new dining room. I thought it looked a little nakey, so I literally grabbed the wreath right off of the front door.

It's a bit awkward to try and secure it to the actual wall. It has large rusty pieces that will not allow it to be flat against the wall. But, for now, the "lean" works. The wheels don't really roll, and the weight of it pretty much says it will stay put.

Isn't the rust just great? I actually picked the piece that still had a little bit of paint to set here.

Oh, and incidentally, this whole area is mostly thrifted! These lamps came from Goodwill about a year ago (I did buy them new shades). The dresser is the 100+ year old one that I scored on Craigslist and then refinished. You can see its entire makeover here. In our previous home, it always served as the coffee bar in our breakfast area. But, I'm loving it in the formal dining room in this home.

The scripture sign was a gift from my MIL a few years ago.

What do you think? Would you ever use something like this as art?

Check out the entire roster of awesomeness from the Thrifty Style Team below:

An InLinkz Link-up

Neglect your chores like me and don't miss a thing:

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