Our Dining Room: The Details

    


I included our dining room when I posted our home tour last week and have blogged about its progress along the way, but here's the official "before/after" post and all of the details in one place.

The dining room is one of the first spaces you see when you walk through the front door, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it sat looking like this for way too long:

The problems:  blah beige walls, a matching table and chairs that I was quickly getting tired of, a mirror that didn't fit the wall, a lack of window treatments--I could go on and on. . . This room definitely evolved over time, with me making lots of changes along the way. 

I started by painting the walls a rich (but not too dark) brown called "Flatland" by Dutch Boy Paints.  The next step was to solve the problem of the matching dining set.  I moved the chairs to our breakfast area, kept the table and since dining chairs can be expensive, I shopped for new ones at a local thrift store.  I came home with six of these for $12 each:

After a couple of different attempts, I settled on this fabric:

(The "Bon Appetit" pillows are inexpensive IKEA covers that I had embroidered.)

I repeated the seat fabric on the window treatments.  From the start, I knew I wanted to bring chartreuse into the space.  I used simple IKEA curtain panels and customized them by having them lined for fullness and adding a wide fabric band.

To tie in the green, I used this fabric to recover a $50 ottoman from Walmart.com, which became my new dining bench:

The rug, by the way, was a $100 Craigslist find.  I must have really wanted it, because I remember going all the way across Charlotte, 9 months pregnant (with my entire family in tow) to pick it up.  Determination does pay off :)

And, I definitely got the mileage out of this book that I bought online for less than $35.  I was able to fill the walls with botanical art without breaking the bank.  I, of course, used my favorite plastic frames from Michael's to complete the look:

The mirror was also a thrift store fnd, and the buffet is our old TV console (originally purchased at a Rooms To Go Outlet).  I just changed the knobs and used the open spaces to house serving trays, table linens, etc.  I've had the lamps for a while.  They were bronze with big bell shades.  I painted them white and bought the oversized shades at a Pottery Barn Outlet store for less than $20 each.

I found the black urns on the dining table on clearance at HomeGoods.  I think that covers everything. . . More details to come on the adjoining living room next week.

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An Etsy shop offering beautiful 1-yard fabrics (sometimes more)--perfect for your small-scale decorating projects!