Dining Room: Before & After

The first time we saw the house, I knew I'd eventually love the dining room. I LOVE the windows! The paint color and the lighting, NO. Ron didn't think the light was bad at all. That night I began stalking Craigslist for a different one. Right away, I found a chandelier a few miles from where we lived. It was only $40 and needed a coat or two of spray paint. I added the Pier 1 curtains that I've had for years, my Craigslist dining table and chairs (I recovered the chairs with some fabric from JoAnn's), and the mirror from Walmart that I was using in my bedroom in the apartment. I started looking around for a buffet. I've been wanting one for a while. At a church dinner, I sat with a friend's mom; she mentioned seeing my post on Facebook that I was looking for a buffet to refinish. She offered to give me one she had in her garage. Yay! I used the same milk paint on it that I used on my mother-in-law's chest. I just sanded and stained the top & added "mercury glass" knobs from Hobby Lobby (later I noticed that Anthroplogie sells the same ones for much more, of course!).

Before... not a fan of the yellow walls (even though I painted my kitchen this color  years ago;)

Before: Love these windows!

Before: The wall color made the floors look more orangey to me.

Before: No words for this...

Years ago, in the world before Pinterest, I TORE this out of Southern Living and kept it in my ideas notebook...

After: Using my mother-in-law's picture, I was able to re-create that look I wanted.

After: The dining room is one of my favorite rooms. I love sitting in here in the mornings.

After: The paint color is Sherwin-Williams wheat grass.

After: I got the blue lamp at Target; I like how it adds color beyond the greens and browns.

After: Centerpieces are hard for me. I found this basket/bowl at TJ Maxx for $12 and filled it with these different balls. It does add color to all the wood in the room. It's sitting on an old cabinet door that came from a yard sale.

After: There was some interesting fabric on these before-- 2 layers, one of which was vinyl.

After: I really want to add a rug in here. I even brought one home from Target, and it looked too small. I think a large neutral striped rug would look good with the dotted curtain panels & floral fabric on chairs...

After: Really happy with how the chandelier turned out. I hope to luck up on some vintage chandelier crystals one of these days.

After: My kitchen overlooks this room. I love how the kitchen and dining room are connected. In our last house, the rooms weren't.

After: I want to add some family pictures in here too.