Guys! I am so excited to share with you our latest finished project - the dining room! When I stepped foot in this house I saw so much potential and I think the completed dining space is a testament to that! While we normally tackle all of our reno work alone, this project included new hardwood floors (they're ash!) and a custom iron railing. The rest of the work - all us! And by us I mean me, Adam, my father in law Jim and my dad! Plus both grandmas who helped watch the kids while we worked over the course of many weekends. It's not like what you see on TV! This stuff takes weeks (or in our case, months!)

Come on over and let me tell you about it!

Before

This space is part of a 1965 addition the original owners designed for the house. Standing at this vantage point is what sold the house for me (really, I knew the moment I walked in that we were meant to live here. Read more about how we lost out on it at first and then how it all came to be here).

Fun fact: we're the third owners of the home and before us, it was all in one family! In fact, our next door neighbor was raised in this house!

Adam and I love both farmhouse elements and midcentury style, so the blend of the two inspired this room.

Take a look at the carpet, wall texture and color, railings, steps, flower box and window awning - they're all about to change below!

After

Floors

When we moved in the dining room was carpeted. We knew we'd want to change that (hello sticky, messy kiddos!) but had other more pressing budget issues to take care of first. One night while looking around at lumber on craigslist, we found a local supplier who wanted to clear out his stock of mixed width ash. The price was incredible so we bought everything we could and we hired out the installation. Instead of staining it, we had a couple coats of oil and a top wax coat applied. We also had our back hallway and kitchen done in the same wood and plan to refinish the original hardwoods from the front living room in a similar fashion.

On top of the wood, I found this awesome black, grey and off white rug from AllModern (in the 8x11 size). It's indoor/outdoor (which I've found are awesome for cleaning and kids!) It sweeps up so easily but hides crumbs pretty well too. A win win! It's definitely one of the most bold elements in the room and I looooove it.

Furniture

I told Adam before we did this space I was going to try to do it all second hand or homemade (and that was before I decided to make that my mission for the whole year). The side credenza came with us from our last home (in fact, we bought it when we first moved in together in Park Slope, Brooklyn!). The table - 'Brazilia' by Broyhill was a craigslist find. I reupholstered the chairs myself (not well enough to make a tutorial, sorry!) they've been scotch guarded and already clean up well.

Lighting

The star of the room may be the 10 light chandelier, but getting it was not easy. The first one I ordered came broken and the replacement was backordered until March. The company told us to donate or trash the broken one, so we decided to try to fix it (failed) but put it up anyways while we waited for a few months. Long story short the new one came earlier than expected, but with globes broken so between the two we finally have one light fixture. The quality is not amazing, but it looks good hanging up. I wasn't willing to pony up the thousands of dollars for the original designer version. Whatever! LET THERE BE LIGHT!

The lamp on the credenza was a vintage find and I recovered the shade myself.

Walls and Windows

This space originally had paneling on the lower half of the wall. On the south side, we tore it out and installed new drywall (#neveragain) and on the west wall I used joint compound to fill in the grooves for a smooth finish. I googled numerous tutorials and watched YouTube clips and it's pretty straight forward!

Next I painted the ceilings (basic white ceiling paint out of the can) and then the walls in Chantilly Lace (Benjamin Moore). I also painted the window trim and went bold by going with Black (also Benjamin Moore). I love the contrast and how it gives the room sort of a Scandinavian vibe!

Railings

The old railings had more of a 1960s front porch feel than we wanted, so we took them out ourselves and had our pal Josh at Clutch Fabrications design new custom rails for us. So fresh! So clean! We also opted to change the edge from a double curve to one curve (where houseplants now live) and a straight edge. This was more economical for the metal work and also gave us an extra two feet of usable space in our dining room.

Decor

Look familiar?! That's because I borrowed it from the upper living room. One of the things I like to do with decorating my house is to move things around from time to time. A lamp in the bedroom today might be in the living room tomorrow. Since we're not getting a lot of living done in the living room, I felt great about giving these piece a place to shine!

I did buy new frames back in 2017 from Target (available here and here). The candlestick holders are from Goodwill and the mirror is also from Target. On the table I made a quick runner using the same fabric as the lampshade and trimmed it with French grey pompom trim.

Near the room's light switches I hung two botanical prints - a paw paw and a poplar. We have both on our property which is kind of cool! I found them at a garage sale many years ago!