hello dining room

I've been a bit antsy waiting for prices from the contractors for the kitchen remodel so I've been revisiting thoughts on the dining room.  To be clear, I'm usually ALWAYS thinking about how I can tweak something or completely change a space to make it perfect.  But because this house is temporary, I try to remind myself not to invest too much time and money into these ideas.  The problem is that the thinking and idea-generating are just things I like to do and they never go away.   And why not use this place as a testing ground in a way for our future place, right?  So, say hello to my dining room.

This is the dining room in it's current state.  Not horrible but certainly not great.  This is our only eating space and this room connects the living room to the kitchen, so it's a primary part of the circulation through the house.  When we moved in we installed the light fixture you see and hung the curtains.  And that's about where the improvements stopped.  The yellow paint is left over from the previous renters and, while most of the trim is in it's original stained state, there is a small portion of white base moulding around the intrusive bump-out the previous owner created for the fridge.  You can see it in plan here (the dining room exists through the doorway to the right of the kitchen).

This room will be getting a coat of new paint sometime in the near future (kitchen renovation pending).  Before that happens, I'd like to start thinking about how to change things up a bit.  Perhaps some new curtains, re-work the styling of the console, add some table linens, and a rug.  I've also been in search of new ways to address the small amount of wall space in the room - a series of these architectural horizon photos by a good friend perhaps - to help give the room a more concrete focal point.  The bright blue skies might just be the pop of color this room needs.