My Dining Room Makeover

Hey gang! So, we’ve been in our house for about a year and a half now, and I know for some people that’s more than enough time to get their act together and have the entire house 100% decorated and styled to their heart’s content.  Are you one of those people? Congratulations, I hate you.

Just kidding. I don’t hate you, I want to be you. But that’s just not the way I work, and I suspect most of us are the same way. Creating a home you love that truly reflects your style is long, loooong process. Fraught with trial and error. Heck, even just nailing down your ‘style’ is tricky business.

So, while the overwhelming majority of my house is still builder-beige and there are plenty of empty walls patiently waiting for attention, I’m slowly trying to make progress.

I’ve been working on my dining room, and while I’m not totally content with it yet, it’s coming along! This is what it looked like last year at Christmas time.  Shield your eyes from the festiveness about to assault you:

WHEW. That was overwhelming.

Since then, I’ve made just a few simple changes in here, namely curtains, a new light fixture, a tiny little bit of paint, and a new rug, and here is the result:

I liked the old rug, it just was way too off-white to look good with all the white-white furniture in here, so it has moved to a different room. I LOVE the new rug, it’s super duper soft, and the hexagon pattern is echoed in the mirror on the wall.

I also painted the ceiling black and now, much like Mick Jagger, I want to paint everything black. It’s so dramatic!  Unpainted ceilings: so not dramatic. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

But, like I said, getting to that point is often a LOT of trial and error. For example: I thought I would use a popular deep gray called Peppercorn and that it would look duh, awesome, so I slapped on a quart and it did not look awesome.

I’ve used it successfully in other places in my house, but in this room it just looked purple. And also, a quart was nowhere near enough.  So, stupidly, I went back to the store and had them mix up another quart of Peppercorn. And they didn’t mix it exactly the same as the first time, so my second coat was slightly lighter (and more purpley) than the first coat, which meant my second coat was null and void.  It looked like garbage.  I left it like that for about a week while I pouted.

Then I thought, “Lindsey, look deep into your heart. What do you REALLY want?” And I had to tell myself the truth.  I wanted a black ceiling. None of this gentle gray nonsense.

This time I bought a gallon of black (lightened by 10%), and within the first few brush strokes, I knew I had done the right thing.

Oooh, do you notice that perfectly straight line? It’s all thanks to my ABSOLUTELY FAVORITE painting tool of all time, and I’ve only recently discovered it, but I will never paint anything without it. No joke.

It’s the Shur-Line Paint Edger, it’s super inexpensive, and you will never have to use painter’s tape to mask off edges again.  It’s the only reason I was able to paint FIVE coats of paint on the ceiling without spending 1000 hours taping and losing my mind, my will to live, and all blood-flow to my brain.

The orb chandelier is a slight step up from the builder fixture that was there before. Understatement.

The curtains are from Budget Blinds and I’m pretty thrilled with them.  They offer LONG lengths, which can be tricky to find. They have tons of options to choose from, I went with charcoal linen, and was happy to see that they come fully lined. I was even able to customize my grommet color to make sure it matched my curtain rod.

I actually have two panels on each side, four panels total, because I like a nice full look. I definitely recommend!

(My fiddle leaf fig will die immediately if I move it from that spot).

I’m currently displaying my pretty pumpkin collection for Thanksgiving/Fall; I try to find a new one each year. Also, do you like my plaid table runner? Just kidding, it’s a scarf! A huge, huge scarf.  You can find that huge, huge scarf at Target.

And here are the sources for everything else!

Apex Hexagon Rug from RugsUSA (It’s 70% off right now!!)

Shur-Line Paint Edger

Curtains from Budget Blinds.

Orb Chrome Chandelier from Overstock.com

Huge Huge Scarf

Thanks for reading friend, hope you enjoyed.  Have a great weekend.

<<This post contains affiliate links; curtains were provided courtesy of Budget Blinds; all words and opinions are my own.