Dining Room Redo

Jer and I bought our house a couple years ago.  When we purchased it, it was two years old and was builder basic in every way – stock light fixtures and all that come with it.  To top it off, the house had been used as a rental property prior to us purchasing it so it was in pretty poor shape.  We got a really good deal on the house because of it, but it’s required a lot of work.  The floors were all stained concrete and not the pretty, high-end kind.  The builder literally came through and color washed the slab.

The first thing we did after buying the house was have the entire interior repainted from top to bottom.  The previous renters were smokers and just didn’t take care of the place.  Every surface needed some cosmetic work.

After that, we put in flooring – hardwoods in our entry and kitchen, tile in the bathrooms and carpet everywhere else.

Since then we’ve slowly been working room-by-room to fix things up, take them from builder basic and make them more us.  The dining room still has a long way to go, but we’re getting to the point where we’re happy with it and can see the finish line. Here’s how the room looked when we bought the house:

Here’s how the dining room looked shortly after we moved in.  As you can see, the new flooring is in. We chose solid hardwoods with Minwax’s Special Walnut stain.

We eventually saved up the money and replaced the countertops in the kitchen with granite. I’ll post about that later. At the same time, we replaced the lights in both the kitchen and dining room. We didn’t want to spend a bundle on the lights and we knew about anything would be an improvement of the basic builder, so we purchased the kits from Lowe’s where you can buy the base fixtures and then pick your own shades.

Here’s a picture after we replaced the lights:

We chose a simple three light fixture that had clean lines, was a little more modern and paired that with some traditional, warm shades on the fixture.

As many of you know, I am obsessed with Fiestaware, vintage Fire King, Pyrex and other little vintage kitchen pieces.  We always knew that we wanted a display piece for the back wall of the dining room to show off some of our collectibles.  Enter this beauty:

Pardon the crappy picture – Jer snapped this right after we moved in the hutch.  I apparently didn’t take any other full view shots.  Blah.

Sadly, I haven’t taken the time to learn more about this piece.  All I know is that it’s a vintage Walnut hutch from the 50s.  The very top shelf is actually supposed to behind glass but one of the panels was broken prior to us purchasing it (we have the knob to the broken panel and the other panel if we decide to add the glass back in).  We wanted something slim and with a small footprint to avoid it from dominating the entire family room, as the living, dining and kitchen are all open to each other.  This fit the bill and it allowed to work in some mid-century modern/Danish modern without much of a protest from the hubs (who prefers his furniture hot off the manufacturer’s floor).

To bring you up to speed with where we are now,  I’ve mentioned a few things we’ve picked up recently: some aqua Ball mason jars and a yellow kitchen cart.  I’ve been collecting the jars from various places for a bit (Ebay, thrift stores) and we found the cart over the weekend at a local consignment shop.  When we brought it home, I couldn’t focus on anything else, so I immediately set to the task of getting it in place and getting all of our goodies set out.  Here’s some Afters:

Here’s a few pictures from the next morning, after I played with the staging a bit more and added a second picture on top of the hutch:

Still to do…

We’d love to eventually change out the table and chairs. We purchased this set specifically for our last house that had a tiny eat in kitchen and no dining room. We bought it because both of the side fold down so, when we weren’t eating at it, it took up virtually no floor space. We’d love to get a farmhouse table and then couple that with some mismatched, mid-century influenced chairs. So it would keep the vibe of mixing old, new, modern and traditional.

We are also going to add crown molding to the top of our kitchen cabinets and then paint them, as well as add hardware. We’re thinking about painting the top cabinets a rich off-white color and the base cabinets a deep brown. We’ll probably tackle that in the next month so I’ll keep you posted.

We’re debating whether or not to paint the back wall of the dining room a different color – maybe a deeper tone of the current wall color or maybe a soft accent color. I can’t decide if that’s a good idea or a really bad idea, so we haven’t committed.

We’d also like to change out the curtains with something that has more personality without being busy. TBD.

Where we got…

Here’s a list of where stuff was sourced from. Our goal was to make a big impact visually without spending a ton of money. I think we accomplished that. At the same time, I don’t know that is the final layout of the dining room, so it’s subject to change.

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  • Wall Color: I’ll post that later. It’s a neutral tan from Sherwin Williams.
  • Dining Room Table and Chairs: Pier 1 Imports 2 years ago (50% off because we bought the floor model)
  • Rug: A find at a local modern furniture store 3 years ago. On clearance for $59.
  • The Dining Room Hutch: Vintage find on Craigslist for $275.
  • The Yellow Kitchen Cart: Vintage find at a local shop for $49.
  • Orange Kitchen Aid Mixer: Purchased on clearance from Williams Sonoma 4 years ago for $70.
  • Dining Room Light: Stock item from Lowe’s.
  • Fiestaware: Purchased new a few pieces at a time over the past few years (Macy’s always has buy one-get one sales a few times a year).
  • Various Vintage Dishes and Kitchenware: Picked up a piece at a time on vacation, from local thrifts, Ebay and Etsy.
  • Artwork: Two already owned Target frames ($14.99 each) with scrapbook paper in them. They’re place holders until we decide on real artwork but we actually really like them. So, who knows, they may stick around! (Although, if we do end up painting the kitchen cabinets, the frames will be painted at that time to bring in some continuity.)

All in all, we spent about $500 over a year slowly upgrading the dining room. We still have work left to do, but we’re pretty happy with where we are now. It’s functional, it’s charming and it displays the collectibles we love so much. Life is good. :)