One of my goals for 2021 was to paint the main areas of our house (kitchen, dining room, entryway/foyer, hallway, and living room) and if you follow me on Instagram, you know I’ve already started tackling this project! I decided to start with our dining room, which has remained virtually untouched renovation-wise since the day we moved in. As soon as paint started to transform the look of the room, my wheels started turning for a phase one renovation of the space! I thought it would be fun to take some time today and share what I’m thinking and some of the plans for the space.
Here’s what the dining room looked like to begin with:
Pretty uninspiring, huh? The first step was patching over the many holes, dings, nicks, and scuffs along the walls, then covering them with a coat of my favorite primer and two coats of Sherwin Williams Alabaster in an eggshell finish. Here’s what it looks like now:
The soft, slightly creamy white feels like a breath of fresh air after almost two years of dingy brown walls and already the room feels so different. I’m excited to give this neglected room some additional, and much needed, TLC!
I love the the idea of mood boards and I think they can be so helpful in visualizing a space, but this busy mama just never has the time to sit down and create one! For me, Pinterest boards quickly and easily give me direction and corral all my ideas and vision into one space. Here’s what my dining room “mood board” currently looks like:
While Justin and I both agree that we would LOVE to update the flooring, we’re holding off for now. The kitchen, pantry, dining room, entryway, powder room, and laundry room all have the same flooring, and they’re connected in a way that isn’t conducive to changing the flooring unless you are going to do it for everything. We know that in a few years we’re planning to change the layout of our kitchen, so it makes sense to hold off on flooring until then. That means the baseboards also stay for now (I’m slowly swapping out the narrow baseboards in our house for a chunky 5 inch version) so I’m just going to paint them in a contrast color. I’m leaning towards using a soft greige like Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray. I am going to also update the window trim, probably giving it the same look as our home office windows, and paint it the same contrast color as the baseboards.
Once all that is completed, the fun will really start! The star of the room is actually not in the room at all: it’s the outdoors! The windows are the biggest statement in the room and they draw your eye outside to all the woods surrounding our house. It’s a fabulous view no matter the season and I’m going to add some window treatments to complement and highlight it.
Just look at the beautiful snow-covered trees that were outside in December!
The windows are large so I need pretty substantial, long curtain rods. I like the simplicity of these matte black ones! The walls come together at unusual angles so I’m also ordering two of these hinged curtain rod connectors to create one continuous curtain rod. As for curtains, I want to use them as a way to create a little drama and add some much needed color to the room – I’ve been debating between this soft rose color and this deep merlot color. I ordered a panel of each so I can see them in person before making my final decision but either way I’m excited for the texture that the velvet will bring to the space!
Since the windows are going to be the focal point, I’m keeping the rest of the room fairly simple. We’ll update the light fixture – I’m currently debating the simple elegance of this brass chandelier vs. the casual vibe of this modern bamboo pendant. I also want to add some artwork and center a large credenza along the window-less wall.
I’m loving the look of credenzas with reeded details but they are $$$$$ so I’m kicking around a few ideas for a possible DIY version…stay tuned for that!
The table and chairs are a big TBD. They are hand-me-downs and while they’ve served us well for the past 7.5 years of marriage, we’re not crazy about the look of them and we’re definitely ready for a change. That being said, this table extends to fit 14 people (!!) which is amazing for our large dining room, and as you can imagine, finding a replacement that is equally as expansive is incredibly expensive. I’m so afraid of dropping a ton of money on a new dining table only to find it clashes with our flooring when we finally update that. Yikes! So, we might keep what we’ve got for now, or we might find an inexpensive secondhand option that is more our style. We’ll see!
All in all, I think this will be a fairly budget-friendly makeover and will definitely tide us over until we’re able to do bigger changes like the flooring and table. Now that I’ve got a pretty clear vision moving forward, I’m excited to start ordering things and pulling this room together. I’ll definitely be sharing more of the day-by-day progress on my Instagram account (@simplifythechaos) so be sure to follow along there if you want more frequent updates!
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