Fall To Do List & Dining Room Tour

At the beginning of Summer, I came across a picture in HGTV magazine of a seasonal chalkboard to do list.  I just had to have one.  It was easy enough to make with a few essentials from Lowes.  I picked up a cheap piece of paneling, which I had cut to the size I wanted.  Mine is a 3’ x 3’ square.  I also picked up enough molding to make a “frame” around the piece of paneling.  With a small can of chalkboard paint, oil-rubbed bronze spray paint for the frame, and a few paintbrushes, I was set.  I painted 2 coats of the chalkboard paint onto the smooth size of the paneling.  My husband cut the molding with his miter saw and I spray painted the 4 pieces before he nailed them all together and attached them around the piece of paneling.  And with a little rearranging of my dining room furniture (aka swapping two pieces), I had the perfect spot for our brand new seasonal to do list!  This was our summer list.

We didn’t accomplish everything on our list, but the kids enjoyed filling in the boxes whenever we did one of the activities.  My older daughter and son were happy to name off things that they wanted to put on the fall list.  Yesterday, summer was erased and now we can start fresh with our new list of activities!  

Here are a few more pictures of our dining room.  I just put out a few small fall decorative pieces.  

I got these little Halloween pails and glittery pumpkins from the dollar spot in Target.  

We keep our age appropriate games and puzzles in the buffet cabinets.  It's the perfect place since we play them at the dining room table.  We do more of that in our dining room than actual dining.  We have an eat-in kitchen table which gets more use during mealtimes.  Besides, this table only has 4 chairs and we have 6 people in our family.  If and when we buy our forever home, I hope to have a dining room large enough to accommodate all of us.  Anyway, at some point, I am considering putting decorative paper along the glass to conceal the games, but for now we are forced to keep them pretty neat.  

The vase in the corner of the room is filled with my daughter's handmade bouquet.  So pretty!

Our dining room doesn't look too shabby when the table isn't covered with the coats, bags, toys, papers, etc. that tend to land there throughout the week.  Next up is to organize the drawers in the buffet and the baskets under the To Do list.  I am not really sure what I want to keep in them though as we don't really use the dining room for dining.  What do you keep in your dining room buffet/hutch/etc?  Do your families have your meals there every day?

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