The second part of the house that we decided to work on was the dining room. We didn't really plan on doing much in this room but it was the little things in this room that made all the difference.
I don't have very many photos of the dining room before for some reason. But I'll do my best to describe it to you. It's a small room - almost perfectly square and placed in between the kitchen and the living room. It has nice crown molding in it but the crown molding and the trim around the floor were painted the same color as the walls. Actually, the ceiling was painted the same color, too. It was as if the previous owners just took a gallon of paint and threw it on the entire room - no contrast anywhere and no thought to highlight the architectural features of the room.
And it had the most horrible gold chandelier you've ever seen. I have no excuses why we had never replaced it. I'm guessing laziness is the primary culprit.
And, yes, that is me out of focus sticking my tongue out at myself. :p But I think you can see the reflection of the horrid chandelier and the walls and molding in this photo. It was all just blah.
As you can also see in this photo above (sorry it's so bad - taken long ago with my cell phone), the carpet was almost the same color as well and flowed directly into the living room carpet. So, imagine a carpet that was light, light cream in a dining room (why would you ever want carpeting in a dining room????) and used daily by 3 kids, a dog and a cat. The light cream carpet was definitely tan by the time we ripped it up.
You can see some of the lovely stains in this photo, too. (Hard to believe this was Sawyer just a few months ago!!!) Oh, and more of that lovely gold floor stripping. Ugh.
Our goal for this room was to simply change the light fixture and paint. The carpet was going to be replaced, too, because we were replacing the living room carpet and this was all one piece.
And this is where we hit the lottery. We fully expected to find sub-flooring under the carpeting based on a previous check of the flooring under the carpet.
But look what we found!!!!!!!!!!
Gorgeous hardwood floors!!!! We were stunned - but I'll write more about the carpeting surprise in another post. :)
So, after we stopped jumping up and down with joy about the floors, we realized that the other changes that we had done really did make a huge difference.
New chandelier and new paint:
I painted the ceiling white, the walls Benjamin Moore China White and the molding and trim Benjamin Moore Simply White. The China White is such a beautiful neutral color - I want to use this everywhere! It provides a beautiful contrast to the bright white trim, yet is still so light and neutral. The undertones are more taupe than yellow and I like that, too. The chandelier is from Lowe's.
We also repurposed photos that I had in the room but grouped them together on the same wall and that made a huge difference. And, once again, the contrast between the white mats, the black frames and walls is nice.
I added a bright flower arrangement on the table to give the room a pop of color, too. There's some red and black arrangements and details on the buffet, also, but I thought that it needed a bit more color than that. We also kept the same black area rug that had previously been in there, as well as the sheers. (There had also been heavy burgundy drapes on top of the sheers, but I took those down to allow more light in.)
And, finally, the room in its entirety.
Cost breakdown: The chandelier cost $38 at Lowe's (I bargain shopped for every single thing), the paint cost approximately $70, and the decorations cost under $10 at Michaels. Everything else was repurposed or reused.
Total cost for the dining room: $118.
Total cost so far: $266.
Part three to come soon. :)
