Dining Room Makeover {On a Budget}

 

My six-month dining room makeover was complete two days after Thanksgiving. 

Oh the irony.

It was still very usable and worked out great for Turkey Day...I just happened to stumble onto the six most delicious Craigslist chairs the Saturday following the "big" day {and by stumbled onto, I mean I've been stalking four separate Craigslist city lists for them for the entiresix months}. Their purchase brought the never-ending dining room makeover to a close and within budget thanks to my good money management. Amen and hallelujah.

And truthfully, the dining room wasn't even on my makeover list for this year...it sort of just "happened". You may remember the saga from June...

"If you give Kristi new floors, she'll want to paint the walls before they're installed. And if she decides to paint the walls, she'll want to paint stripes. And if she's repainting the walls with stripes, she'll want to redo the window treatments. And if she's redoing the window treatments, she'll want to paint the backs of the hutches blue to match the new window treatments. . ."

I've said it before, but the previous decor was quickly turning into Sunday dinner at Grandma's. And I am more of a Saturday Night Supper Club kind of gal {at least that's how I picture myself in my mind...I suppose technically more of an on-the-couch-sweatpants-wearin'-watching-Downton-Abbey-with-a-diet-soda-in-one-hand-and-laptop-in-the-other kind of gal. Potato-PotAHto}.

I didn't think too much of my old dining room until an older lady from church {and I mean older with all due respect} came by one day. She told me my dining room reminded her of her mother's current dining room...at the nursing home. I about died, y'all. 

So when I realized we were getting the new floors, I turned to David and told him I was going to take on redoing the dining room while we were in the process of redoing the floors. Seemed easy enough. {Insert eyeroll}

Looking back, I'm quite thrilled I was dumb enough to take on the project in the midst of the craziness of installing new floors. My stupidity resulted in something I'm actually kind of proud of. 

Buh-bye, nursing home decor.

 

I've done tutorials and posts over several of the projects in here over the past few months. Here's the breakdown {click on the links to see the full posts}:

1. Painted Drop-Cloth Drapes

2. DIY Drapery Rods on the Cheap

3. Grandma's Dresser Gets a Makeover

4. DIY Starburst Mirror {Made from Posterboard & Love}

5. Painting Stripes Easy & Flawlessly

6. Gussied Up Dollar Store Candle Holders

7. New Vinyl "Wood" Flooring

The green took quite a bit of primer and paint to get rid of. The beauty of getting the new flooring was skipping the drop cloth ritual. Liberating.

Again, I have a tutorial on how we created the flawless stripes in here.
We did them on the two shorter walls to add more depth to a short & squatty room.

And next came the flooring installation. Oh, sweet Jesus, this was a crazy day.

But soooooo worth it.
Nothing like a nice new palette to work with.

Next, I created the DIY Drapery Rods.

These were inspired by Allison from The House of Hepworths.

These ended up being a necessity after I realized how heavy the drapes were. Gah.

After the rods came the drapery painting.

Which also created a lovely blue floor in my garage. 

Funny how drop cloths don't actually absorb paint.

Blue garage floor=fun and funky custom drapes

The Nester inspired me to make my own DIY Starburst Mirror out of posterboard.

Then I poked around in my parents' shed and found a dilly of a project:

my great grandmother's dresser. 

It got a fun makeover in my Oops Blue. 

I also pulled off the backs of the china cabinets and painted them with that Oops Blue as well. I painted the "wrong" side of them, so if I ever want to go back to the wood sides, I can just flip them back over.
These belonged to my late uncle, then to my mother, and about seven years ago, were passed on to me when my parents down-sized into their new home. My uncle did all of the leaded glass in the doors himself.

I truly wanted a new drum-shade chandelier in here...but at $500+, it just wasn't in my budget.
Maybe one day...

For now, I bought some sparkly beaded garland, in my favorite shade of blue, on our Salado trip and simply wrapped pieces of the garland on each arm of the chandelier, as well as one strand at the top.

It just adds some extra bling-a-ding-ding up there.

And of course, the night before Thanksgiving, I put together some centerpiece candles to use for our meal...which I'm really pleased with how they came out.
They started out as Dollar Tree candle holders! To see that tutorial, click here.

And the final touch....THE CHAIRS!

I've seriously been looking for Parsons' Style chairs for quite some time for this room. I wanted some that didn't have host/hostess chairs, so I could keep them just on the sides of the table. The table also belonged to my late uncle...and I LOVE the big chunky base legs it sits on. I wanted to nix those end chairs to show off her pretty legs. And I'm completely flabbergasted that I stumbled onto the perfect chairs on Craigslist. What a find! The previous owner was getting rid of them for a few minor reasons {nothing wrong with them...just not right for her home}. I was only too happy to take these off her hands for a bargain.  

I couldn't be happier with the new space. While I know the floors were a huge part of this makeover, we received those at no monetary cost to us. Which brought this makeover to less than $400 for everything...I was kind of excited about that one! Had I bought those chairs new, they would have been over $1,000 {I had been contemplating that purchase for the whole six months}. So happy I waited!!