Dining Room Update {DIY Home}

The saga of the dining room is ALMOST over. ALMOST.

We are almost done. If you recall, the dining room looked like this in February:

And then we took down the wood paneling and it looked like this:

Then I tried using the Rustoleum cabinet kit and failed:

Then I decided to just stop the madness and paint my cabinets a glossy white the old-fashioned way (sand, prime, paint 3 coats).

We added crown to the tops of the cabinets. The crown meets up with the rest of the crown in the room.

The ugly wall paper and country curtains/mismatched curtains have come down:

And I am proud to say that here’s a sneak peek of what lots of hours of work, arguing and stress will get you:

The previous owner went nuts with a hole saw apparently…Oh well, it helps facilitate all the cords that go to my PC.

Pee Wee enjoying his window bench. You can see we didn’t paint all the way to the floor since we put in chair rail:

Love the crystal floor lamp I found at Marshalls for $60.

This fan/light/POS has got to go. We have plans for what to put in it’s place.

CABINETS ARE DONE!!!!! New countertops will be going in within a few weeks.

Pretty crystal & chrome knobs from eBay. $2 each

My craft desk is in the corner for now, but it won’t be in here at all once we’re done with the room. For now it stays.

Hello! Chrome bin pulls from eBay- also $2 each.

Swoon. All that hardwork was SO worth it.

Another floor lamp I bought recently. I have a thing for lamps. $35 at Sears.

What’s left to do?

1.) New floors- yup, we’re going for it. They’re a wide plank, laminate with a handscraped finish. Rich, dark brown. Love.

2.) Lighting- new chandeliers! One for over the table (where the fan is) plus one in the living/office area. We’ve decided on these from Lowes:

3.) My Chloe sofa to replace the bench in front of the window. From Macys:

Should I get the sofa in ivory, seafoam or stone? I am leaning towards ivory or seafoam.

4.) Put countertops in. We bought them for a steal at a local hardware store. They’re simple laminate, but they’re for a dining room not a kitchen, so I am cool with it.

5.) Put under cabinet LED lights.

6.) Paint wall behind cabinets. I am having lots of trouble with this. I want a bold pattern, so I might use a stencil. Ideas? I don’t even know what color to go with. A reminder of what wall I am talking about:

7.) Find curtains for windows. Again, I am stumped on a color/pattern. ideas?

8.) Finish painting all the trim work. UGH.

9.) Decorate the walls.

10.) Find a rug to define the spaces.

11.) Mount TV between the gap in the cabinets up top. Yup. Seriously. We want a space that can function as a living/dining/office space.

12.) Find/make slipcovers for the dining benches/barstools.

Yeah, we’ve got quite a bit left to do, but this room has improved SO much since we first moved in back in October.

What do you think? Any suggestions? In case you’re wondering I will be posting tutorials on crown moulding, drilling holes for hardware, and painting cabinets in the upcoming weeks. If you’d like to know how I did something in particular, leave me a comment and I’ll reply to ya via e-mail or include the info in one of my upcoming posts.