Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

My Dining Room Makeover: Commonplace Creams to Gracious Greens & Link Up On the Edge #311

September 2, 2022 / 64 Comments

I might be the slowest person on earth with my home improvements, taking nearly 2 years just to complete 3 small areas in my house. But slow progress is still progress. Although I would like to pick up my progress pace.

I began with my cloffice makeover in January 2021, tackling the smallest space in my home first. It took me an entire year to move on to the next smallest and easiest space, my happy hippie hallway, in January 2022. Eight months later, I decided on a whim to tackle my dining room because it had the least amount of furniture to be moved around. I had one week to complete it from my beginning date before my in-laws came to visit for 10 days. And now that I have completed my dining room makeover, I am motivated and determined to have every room in my house repainted within a year. Then we will move onto replacing carpets and flooring and bathroom fixtures like the bathroom sink.

Before I get to my dining room, however, let me quickly share some small updates that I made to my cloffice area and hallway.

I had my Mapiful prints reframed in matching frames and moved them to the walls outside of my cloffice. Then I added a curtain to the doorway to hide the mess within. The curtain is one of the panels from my dining room which I switched out for DIY burlap valances. No matter how hard I try to keep my desk neat and clean, it still ends up a giant messy pile of papers and things that take over until I get around to clearing it out again. I really like that it is all hidden behind a curtain now.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

In my upstairs Happie Hippie Hallway, I added two bamboo ladders as scarf displays in the space where I had intended to hang framed caricatures that I have had for years. One is of myself that was done by a street artist in New York City over 20 years ago and the other is of my boys that was done by a caricature artist at our county fair back in 2015. I need to get these caricatures framed first so the ladders have taken that space for now. Although I might be using the framed caricatures in the bathroom off of my kitchen when I get around to painting that space, leaving these ladders exactly where they are.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

For my kitchen and bathroom makeovers, I have in mind brightly colored walls, black and white checkered floor tiles, and a 1950s diner style motif with cheerful and eclectic artwork on the walls, such as caricatures. But the kitchen and bathrooms are last on the makeover list. I am tackling the boys’ bedrooms next, first converting Ralph’s room into a game room and then redecorating Archie’s room into their shared bedroom since they have been sharing that bedroom the entire 5 years that we have lived in this house.

Ralph’s room has acted solely as a guest room and essentially has been wasted space except for the few times a year we have house guests. We recently purchased a pull out couch (for $25 from our neighbors who just moved to Texas) for extra sleep space once we get rid of Ralph’s bed which will be on Tuesday.

We had listed our old couch on Facebook Marketplace for free and a young girl stopped by yesterday to pick it up for her first apartment but she only had a small sedan so she couldn’t transport it. We are dropping it off for her later today when my father in law arrives with his pickup truck. While the girl was making these arrangements with Jeff, I told him to ask her if she also needed a queen size bed frame and mattress. She was so excited because she apparently has nothing to furnish her first apartment. We will be delivering the bed to her on Tuesday morning when our house guests are leaving and we no longer need that extra bed. I was so happy that we were able to help out a young person as she gets started on adult life!

Once the bed is moved out, I will be starting immediately on the transition from bedroom to game room. The game room is going to have an outer space theme because we are a bunch of space nerds in this house. I just ordered a Blue Nebula mural from Photowall for the game room and will begin the painting process on Tuesday or Wednesday and hopefully have our Photowall mural installed by the weekend.

Okay. Enough about all those decorating plans. Let’s get to my dining room.

I completely forgot to take pictures of it before I moved all the furniture out the way for painting so I will share a few old photos I have of my dining room. Keep in mind, however, I always made sure my photos hid all the clutter so you don’t get a great view of what it looked like before. I did take some photos of the room after I moved the furniture around so you can at least get a good idea of the boring commonplace cream color that it was.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
This built in shelf area was painted a really weird grayish-green color that appears nowhere else in my house.
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Easter 2022

You can see where the butcher block table/bar top is against the back wall of the dining room (right behind my head). We moved that to the other side of the room and it really opened it up in the most wonderful way.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Everything is moved to the center of the room and we began taping for painting.
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Our bookcases were just heaped with books. I have been a book collector for my entire life and I have reached a point where I no longer want to carry all this weight around with me. I will go to the library and borrow books when I want to read something! Of course, we kept a small collection of books on hand, but the books in these bins were all donated. I passed all of my mental health related books onto my therapist and she was really excited to have them so that made me really happy. Then we donated the rest to The Salvation Army.

Jeff and I had designated the dining room area as the “military room” where we would display all of his military memorabilia. Initially, I was going to go with an Americana theme of deep blue, dark red, and antique white but I wasn’t loving the flow from my sage green cloffice/hallway walls into a red, white, and blue room. So we decided instead on dark greens reflective of Army uniforms. I used Valspar paint from Lowe’s. The walls are in Northern Glen and the trim is in Night Safari.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

I even painted the center of the ceiling beams in Northern Glen. It was a giant pain in the arse but I love it so it was totally worth the effort and the extra sore shoulders.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

Then I hung the old curtains back up and hated them. They covered all the trim work that I so painstakingly painted. All that trim took a solid 6 hours of painting to get two coats on.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

I decided that valances were a better idea so that the trim and our custom wooden blinds could be seen. And this is when I got the idea to use burlap for valances. I went searching online for DIY burlap curtains and found these two simple ideas.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
I loved this jute valance from Everything Burlap on Etsy but it was a bit too pricey for my budget.
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Then I found this no sew DIY burlap valance on Our Crafty Mom.

After deciding on the DIY valances, I took some measurements and headed off to Joann Fabrics to purchase 8 yards of natural colored burlap for around $30 and a roll of iron-on hem tape for $5. I washed the fabric first, hung it on the line to dry, vigorously shook off as much burlap lint as I could manage, ironed the panels, and draped them over the curtain rods before deciding what to do next. I ended up really liking the raw unhemmed edges so I didn’t even bother with the hem tape. But I did struggle getting the curtains to drape the way I had envisioned them.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

After I got adequately frustrated in my attempts to get the valances hanging evenly and correctly, I gave up on that idea and ended here…

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

I love the way the burlap filters the sunlight and I am super excited to change out the twine ties for holiday themed ribbons and bows. As I was tying the curtains, my precut green twine pieces suddenly went missing. I was looking all over the dining room for them when Ralph pointed out that I should look at our cat Dave. It seems he got all tangled up in my decorating project.

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

We had planned to replace the area rug in the dining room but once I removed the old one, we really liked the room with no rug. We had to add felt pieces to the chair legs to prevent scratching but that was a super easy fix for just a few dollars. I bought some fresh flowers to liven up the newly finished dining room and here you have it…my dining room has had its makeover!

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
The cats, Dave and Frankie, seem to like it. I am going to hem this fabric for a table runner but I just haven’t gotten to it yet.
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

I moved the butcher block/bar table to the opposite wall and it is such a huge improvement. I have no idea why we didn’t think to move it over the previous 5 years!

Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge
Dining Room Makeover, home improvement, Shelbee on the Edge

I absolutely love my new dining room! Eventually, we will replace the floors and refinish the table and chairs but for now it is even better than I imagined it would be.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my home and my makeover projects! Have a fantastic weekend!

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Shelbee

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I am a midlife woman, wife, and stay-at-home mother of 2 boys and 2 cats. I have a passion for helping other women feel fabulous in the midst of this crazy, beautiful life.

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