My Dining Room Before And After

This may have been the longest room revamp in history, but the day is here! My dining room is complete! You probably don't even remember the plan I had for this room waaaaaay back when do you? There are lots of reasons it took so long.

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One, I didn’t have a solid vision

Sometimes knowing exactly the way you want a room to look takes time. As I found certain pieces that I fell in love with like that amazeballz chandelier, my vision became more and more clear. So it dragged on and on, but I think it is always better to take your time so you end up with exactly what you want. Let’s be real. Even budget friendly design decisions cost money. And we don’t have money to go wasting around here.

Two, I’m sorta busy being a mom

It is an everyday thing. And as much as I could spend forever doing my creative thing, I am fully aware that they aren’t going to be little forever. So having unfinished projects is just sorta part of the deal.

And third, I had to get some help from the ol’ hubs for some of the projects that made this room happen.

His schedule is a bit funky, so when we do have a day to spend as a family, DIY is not always at the top of our list.

Before

After

How is that for keepin’ it real? An avid DIYer telling you that DIY isn’t always her favorite thing to do. Yep, I said it.

Ok. So take a look at that before photo! Did I just hear you start snoring? Probably because that is the most boring room one has ever seen right?

So now look right! Ta-daaaaa!

I seriously wish you could actually stand in this room. The photos just don’t give you the full awesome that it really is.

Like I mentioned in the original plan post, I wanted a dining room that felt more casual, was way more interesting, and had a bit more of a collected feel. How do you think I did?

Let’s take a closer look and try to get a better feel, and I’ll tell you all about the projects big and small that went into turning this room around.

The first project that I took on were these dining chairs that I found on Craigslist for $10 each! The shape of them reminded me so much of the one I fell in love with on my inspiration board. So I bought them, sanded them down, and figured out a way to reupholster them with a Michael Miller fabric that I bought online. (That exact fabric is no longer available but you can find similar gray and white patterns here.)

If you’d like to see just how I taught myself to reupholster these chairs, I shared the step by step process in this post: how to reupholster dining chairs.

Then, for the end chairs I wanted them to go, but not match, and I found some on sale at World Market (the ones I got are no longer available but you can find similar ones here.) They’re really comfortable.

Once those two things were done, the dining room stalled for quite some time.

Then I was flipping through the Crate & Barrel catalog one day and spotted a beauty of a chandelier (find similar ones here). I still had gift cards from my wedding, so I made the purchase.

This was definitely the splurge for the room, but this room needed a statement, and this chandelier did that. Plus, I reinvented my the old sad chandelier into a perfect outdoor candle chandelier!

You probably noticed that the wall color on the far wall changed too. I painted it a really light blue to lighten up the space. And no that isn’t wall paper… that’s a much cheaper solution.

I like to call it Hexagon Sharpie Wallpaper. Clever, I know. But it really is just me drawing hexagons on the wall with a Sharpie. It’s oh so subtle (and beautiful).

The next project was this old cabinet that was my grandmother's, that I turned into an industrial chic bar cabinet. It gives us some much needed storage and is such a great way to remember my grandmother. It has some really fun details on the inside, so if you have not yet seen its transformation, go take a peek!

So then the small silver candle holders on the wall below the stairs weren’t doing it for me anymore either. (Sorta like if you give a mouse a cookie right? Snowball effect!) But I had an ugly mirror that I had also inherited from my grandma that I was able to make beautiful! The herringbone pattern on the mirror is my favorite thing in this room!

Alright, so now I had 6 awesome side chairs, 2 comfortable and awesome end chairs, a fantastic chandelier, and a killer bar/ storage area, but now the table was just too short. We had people over for dinner and the side chairs were just a little too cramped. So what now? A new dining table. Not. In. Our. Budget. 🙁

So I did what any other resourceful lady like myself would do and I created a new leaf! Well actually I had some help, but the point is, I was able to make the table 12 inches longer for only about $40.

Now it not only is way more comfortable for 8 people (and I could squeeze a few kiddos in there too if I need to) but it fills the room better as well! Hooray me!

So now when you enter my home, you see this pretty space!

So here we are. This room is not boring, it has the more “collected over time” feel that I was going for, and the only new purchases I had to make to get this look were the chandelier and the end chairs! Not bad huh?