Dining Room Updates

Hola friends!!  More updates on the apartment!

Things are getting done around here - art hung, walls painted, and now we're slowing down because it feels like we live here for real, instead of that "just-moved-in can't-find-the-cheese-grater" temporary feeling.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  To put it simply, we're feeling completely settled now, so I thought I'd share a few pictures of the dining room.

You've already seen a few snapshots from this post when I hung the shelves up, and this post where I put up pictures of the linen curtains in here, but here's the room in it's fairly "finished" state.

The rug in here is new for this apartment - I'd blogged about it here - and when it first came, I was not 100% sure about how I felt.  Looking at these pictures, I'm still not fully sure it's love, but I like it.  I like the colors, and how it feels really tied in with the rest of the house, and it's got a nubby, earthy texture that is cool.

It's not plush and soft under foot, but I don't think it's supposed to be.  It looks cool with the weathered stain on the shelves and the tripod lamp, so for now, it stays.

With the shelves on that wall, I had a hard time deciding what should go next to it.  For now, we're sticking with the large abstract canvas that was hanging in the living room of our last apartment.  I like them together, and feel like the large scale art balances the "heavy" feeling shelves out.

I have yet to really photograph the other wall in here (you can kind of see in the first picture), but there is a smallish gallery wall happening, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Other plans for this space...

A NEW TABLE:
This table, as much as I love the pedestal is very rickity, and smallish.  Not that we need a huge table, but something that doesn't creak when you set your elbows on it would be nice.  In the interim, it needs a good coat of paint - you can really tell from the above photo that it's looking shabby, and when we sell it, it can't be looking like this.  For now, this table is fine, but a new one is on the wish list.

Kris really liked this one from West Elm:

I was thinking of something a bit more like this:

A FRESH COAT OF PAINT
I was feeling a bit "painted out" after repainting both the living room, and most recently, the kitchen, but this room is in serious need of freshening.  There are scuffs and holes galore, and the scuffs are permanent.  I went through two Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, and they didn't even make a dent. You know how powerful those things are too!

Also the heater vent...  Ugh, the peeling paint just kills me, but before that gets painted, it needs to be sanded.  Not a project I'm looking forward to, but an update which will eventually make a really HUGE difference.

The vent will be white, but I'm not 100% sure on the walls - perhaps my go-to favorite, Intense White by Benjamin Moore (which is really a light grey)- but maybe a stark white (like Decorator's White - Benjamin Moore) would be nice...

A NEW OVERHEAD LIGHT
A pretty chandelier or pendant would look awesome in here - especially since we decided to keep this as a dining room with a table in the center.  I conveniently left the current light out of the pictures, but it's one of those flush mount boob lights that is just so ugly.  The great thing about lighting is that we can re-install the boob lights when we leave, and bring our chandelier / pendant with us into our next space.

We have a chandelier that I bought last year and never installed, but I think it might be better in our bedroom... or the entry.  I've always admired the Clarissa series of chandeliers from Pottery Barn... the long one is really lovely over a dining room table:

But the Orb Chandlier from Ballard is also really cool, and I think a bit more to Kris' tastes...

Thoughts?

Does anyone have any recommendations on (not super expensive) pendants or chandeliers you've seen recently?