New Look for the Dining Room
Submitted By: Design OCD
This isn’t the history of dining rooms in general, just three iterations of mine. It’s funny to look at before and after photos. It’s funny the things you thought were ok at the time.
The dining room is a 12×12 square room. When we first moved in, the dining room was carpeted. Boo! The dining room was also pink and wallpapered.
In my first attempt to personalize this room, the first thing I did was paint the walls red. I’ve seen some not so positive comments about red dining rooms being a ‘thing’in the south but oh well. I like it. I’m fond of a cool red, not an orangey red. The color I chose was Behr’s Red Red Wine. I painted the top section of the wall red and painted the bottom with Behr’s Ultra White in semi-gloss.
The next thing ‘we’ did was pull out the carpet and put down wood floors. At the time, we chose engineered wood. And the ‘we’ is relative b/c honestly, A did the floors in that room all by himself. He did it in one afternoon, it was awesome! You will notice in pictures that he did not do the quarter round trim at the time, and sadly it’s still not done today.
I stuck my existing furniture in the room and was kind of lame with the wall art, and called it finished. Eeeeewww.
Fast forward to this spring, when I decided to revamp the room a bit. I really wanted a round table in the square room but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on new furniture. In fact, I wanted to keep the amount spent to about the same price I could sell my exisiting dining set for. I found a great set on Craiglist. A 60inch round table with 4 accompanying chairs for $225. I was super excited about redoing them myself, but as I mentioned earlier I decided to have the table professionally painted in the end and painted the chairs myself.
I kept the red walls. I still like red, and that is what matters. I went kind of bold with a pop of color though. I went with turquoise. Whoa! I actually painted a wine rack I had in the room with Behr’s Zeal Teal (in their Paint + Primer combo) first. Then, I found quatrefoil patterned curtains from Z Gallerie in the same color. I wasn’t looking for them. I just saw them and loved them. They are bright and happy. I reused things I already had, like the plates on the walls – I just took them out of official plate hangers and hung them directly on the wall in a semi-random pattern. I hung a big round mirror, which mimics the round table. And I found a bar cart at a local flea market for $22. It is sturdy and metal and was dirty but a fresh coat of white paint made it look great. I probably have it a bit too crowded for aesthetics right now, maybe I will remove some of the bottles. I’m not sure what I will hang on one last wall yet.
The good thing is that the to do list that remains for this room is short:
- install quarter round trim at the baseboards
- replace electrical outlets and covers
- blinds?
Cassity Kmetzsch started Remodelaholic after graduating from Utah State University with a degree in Interior Design. Remodelaholic is the place to share her love for knocking out walls, and building everything back up again to not only add function but beauty to her home. Together with her husband Justin, they have remodeled 6 homes and are working on a seventh. She is a mother of four amazing girls. Making a house a home is her favorite hobby.
In loveeeeee with this room!! Red is my fave color and it looks wonderful on the walls…….and I love the little pops of color you have added with the blue. Beautiful room!
Absolutely love those ZGalleries curtains, the touches of turquoise in the room really pop with the red. Cheers and congrats on a great room!~
Very, very, very nice blog! 😀
Congratulations from Brazil!