Just like my living area, my dining room also came together over time. With my first apartment featured in this month's Style at Home I'm sharing some progress shots of how my apartment came to its final look. Here's my dining room now, read on to see it before!

Photography by Virginia MacDonald

There were 3 major changes over time that I did to my dining room.

1. New dining chairs: The black fold up chairs have made their way into the homes of many of my family members. I grew tired of these chairs quickly as I was never a huge fan of the black and they were rather uncomfortable. These were my chairs for almost two years - the white Eames knock offs from Kitchen Stuff Plus were a Christmas gift last year. Best. Gift. Ever!

2. Bar Cart: Instead of buying us something cheesy, our friends decided to gift us with the coolest white (obviously) bar cart from CB2.  In return, Lauren (my roommate) and I promised we would always keep it stocked for when they come to visit! It's simple round shape fits perfectly into the once dead corner and also gives us the added bonus of more storage! The white is no longer available, but CB2 now sells it in a great chrome finish.

3. New Sideboard: I love being organized. It's a bit of an addiction. So after a while, having an open concept sideboard was making me twitch. The Expedit unit that we used for months was from my roommates old apartment. Don't get me wrong, this is a great piece! But being able to see everything that we were storing  was beginning to feel too cluttered. In many of the homes we shoot for the magazine I have seen the Besta unit from IKEA used time and time again. I decided to take a closer look at it for my own needs and it was a perfect fit. I went with this combination, which offers two sides with single shelves and a middle section of 4 drawers. It gives us tons of storage that is hidden away from the eye and BONUS...it comes in high gloss white!