Dining Room Updates

When we first looked at our house, I fell in love with the huge bay windows in the dining room, but that was pretty much the ONLY thing I liked about this room. The blinds, wallpaper, light fixture, and icky linoleum had to go -- and fast.

You agree? Good. :)

When we moved in, my mother-in-law and I immediately began tearing down the wallpaper and chair rail. I've always heard terrible things about taking down wallpaper, but I thought it was kind of fun. (I'm weird.) The texture underneath the wallpaper didn't match the existing walls, so we had someone come out a add the texture--which was a lot more pricey than I thought it would be, but I was happy to have it done. Bryan laid the new floors, and my family (mostly my dad) painted the dining room in the same color we had in our old house -- Benjamin Moore Camouflage, and the ceiling in Valspar Antique White. I also took down those old blinds as soon as I could, as well. Let there be light, right?  

After ALL of that, we were out of money but still wanted to update a few things to get us through 'Phase One' of the dining room makeover.

First, I needed to do something (free) to this brass light.

In the future, hopefully by the time we renovate the kitchen, I want to completely replace this light with a big dramatic chandelier of some sort. But to get us through for now, I decided to remove the light covers and spray paint the metal part with a basic white that I already had. 

Here is what I ended up with...

I have to say, I really love how it turned out...kind of industrial in  a cheap way, haha. I used some of those round bulbs we already had and (you know, the ones that are used in those dated strip vanity lights--yeah, we have those too), but I like the overall look of them on this light.

For the next project, I really, really, wanted my husband to sand down and re-stain our table. Bryan was nice enough to re-finish the table top about a year and a half ago, but it wasn't sealed properly (sorry B), so it had gradually lost a lot of the color from cleanings. 

I was also really tired of the cherry color (which didn't entirely match the pedestal base) and thought that since our new floors were darker, it would be best to lighten the table up completely.

After a lot of bribing with golf and more golf, Bryan sanded down the entire table (in the garage, in the middle of August in Texas for that matter). I got like 15 small projects done while he did this, so I still owe him pretty big. I helped a teensy bit by sanding the table top finely and staining it, but my wonderful husband did pretty much all of the dirty work. :) We used Danish Oil to give it just a bit of natural color, and sealed it with  a poly-acrylic sealer in satin. (We researched sealers a lot and this one seemed the best for the matte look we wanted and has held up perfectly with a toddler and constant cleanings.)

SO. 

Here, again, is what we originally started out with...

And here is our 'For Now' After...

We still have A LOT we want to do in here. Among these are: getting new blinds that are raised to the ceiling (I'm thinking bamboo, of course), new curtains that also go to the ceiling (some sort of subtle pattern), a new chandelier, possibly a new rug (I can't decided what is easier to clean with a kiddo), and I also want to decorate the walls, maybe move our Craigslist buffet in here...etc. 

Bryan did a beautiful job with the table and I am SO obsessed with the look of  it now. He left the existing stain in the crevices of the pedestal, partly because it was too hard to sand, but partly because I really loved the distressed look it gives off. Winner!

So, there is a little before and after for you. Hope you enjoyed it!

Have a wonderful Wednesday.