Dining Room Updates

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

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.




15 comments:

  1. It looks awesome! Love those chairs too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. Thanks! Haha, yes, Parker is a teensy bit obsessed :)

      Delete
  4. Looks great! I'm loving all these transformations even if they are just the "for now" afters!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Meghan! I am so impatient for the final re-dos but I am pretty happy with these results :)

      Delete
  5. All I can say is "whoa!" What a beautiful difference. The table looks really high end with that new stain - so glad you did that instead of painting like everyone else. And for whatever it's worth, I have had rugs and no rugs with kids, and definitely no rug is way easier for cleaning. Otherwise it gets wet, nasty, and smelly and you have to pull out the vacuum everyday. With a hard floor you just grab the broom or the sweeper and forget about it :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I know, we had a rug in out old house and I was tired of vacuuming it, but now I don't have a rug and I feel like it looks bare and I'm already tired of sweeping and mopping all the time...haha! I would dust-bust our old rug, and we never had any real stain issues (it was an outdoor rug), but I think it's tedious to clean no matter what you do :)

      Delete
  6. I love how the chandy turned out! I bet you could dip the bulbs in a white or gold paint for an extra touch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What?? Awesome suggestion! I will have to think about that. Thanks, Natasha!

      Delete
  7. Why did anyone ever think linoleum was a good idea? Yuck. The transformation is breathtaking though! We removed old paneling in our family room and the walls down there were such a hot mess that we ended up putting up beadboard instead of having them retextuerd (our house is a really weird [ugly], like, brush stroke sort of texture?)

    Bamboo blinds would look great in there with the chairs, and can I just say I've been lusting after your table since forever? We have a cheap counter height table that I'd like to take out back with a baseball bat and every time I see pictures of your table I'm like, crap I need to get on Craigslist!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Lauren! We considered doing beadboard, but I want to do it on the ceilings (eventually) so I didn't want to have beadboard overload, haha. We have orange peel texture...which I'm not a huge fan of either, but what can you do?

      Haha! Yes, you should! I'm sure you could find something on Denver's craigslist in a heartbeat--there is a huge selection. A lot of my favorite finds have been from Denver and I make my mom go pick them up for me, haha!

      Delete
  8. I love the new look for your table! I'm dying for a round pedestal table for our dining room! Where did you find yours?

    We gave our chandelier an update by putting a big linen drum shade ($10 from the Rooms to Go outlet) right on top! It's amazing how just $10 changed the look of the room!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you!! I love it too, we got it off of craigslist for $100. It's solid wood and beautiful in person. I would suggest checking there, I know that people are always selling pedestal tables where we live (I'm on there a lot). They don't know how trendy they are!

      And I have seriously considered that, but I'm thinking of doing a drum shade in the hallway or living room and I don't want it to be too repetitive. It is definitely amazing, though!

      Delete
  9. It looking really pretty so far. I'm sure the final result will be awesome!

    ReplyDelete

I love comments! Thank you!

I try to respond to all questions directly in the comment section, so be sure to check back if you ask anything.