Give your dining room a simple update to make it a cozy place for your family to sit and enjoy a home-cooked meal, or play a family game.
Moving into a home can be exciting and stressful all at the same time. Sometimes there is a lot of work to be done to the home (hello, old farmhouses) and other times it may be brand new, or recently updated, but its not your style or taste. Do you feel me? I know for me personally, I walk into places and yes, I think it’s beautiful but I think to myself “it’s just not me”. Let me give you a few tips to transform your space to make it “you”.
1. Clean Your Dining Room
This should go without saying, but I don’t think it’s said enough. Who else has started painting and realized they now have cobwebs in your paint roller? I know I for sure have! Let’s give those rooms a quick clean before we begin. We’ll be glad to see some progress already.
2. Tips for Painting Your Dining Room
Paint is the greatest way to transform a space or object to personalize or update that doesn’t break the bank. Now, painting does take a little elbow grease if you are doing it yourself. But it shows a quick reward.
The color paint I used in this room is ‘Mousey Tint’ by Dutchboy. Since there are kids in the house, I always get the Dura-Clean, Semi-Gloss. The paint here before was a matte finish and I cloud see the dust standing on it, not to mention how hard it was to clean off.
Tips for painting Your Dining Room
- Pick your Color Scheme (When choosing a color, look at the bottom color to ensure you like the tones of the colors you are selecting)
- Get Your Supplies – Make sure to make and bring a list with you so you don’t forget anything.
- Mask and Tape – don’t get those floors dirty!
- Prime – Yes, most paints come with an included primer in them, but (especially in my case) primer is cheaper than paint, so putting 2+ coats on of paint doesn’t sound so good.
- Paint! – Get your hands dirty, and get ready for some transformation!
- Clean up. I know, I know, no-one likes this part. It’s okay.
- Enjoy! On to the next step – Decorating!
3. How to Pick Out the Right Dining Room Furniture
Choosing furniture is a great way to make or break a room. You want to choose the right pieces that don’t clutter up the space or get in the way. The First thing you want to do is to envision what you want out of this room.
My requirements for this dining room was:
- Dining Table and Chairs (obvious, right)
- Credenza or Hutch (I was open to either, however if you need space or have china or dishes to display keep this in mind.
- Coat Shelf We made this into our main guest door so I wanted to have a space where people can hang their coats on when they walk in.
- Fireplace We want this room to be a cozy room we can play games in the winter or have people over for a Sunday brunch. I fireplace just seems like such a good way to give a room that feeling. Luckily there was already a faux one left here when we moved.
- Chair When I wake up in the morning I don’t want to get too cozy. I like to read, and to drink my coffee but I also want to get up and have a productive day. Being on the couch doesn’t seem to go very well. So putting a comfortable chair in the dining room means a lot in my daily routine. It’s also a great place for me to sit when I nurse the baby while the family is eating their meals.
Facebook Marketplace and garage sales have been my best friend in regard to looking for solid wood furniture for cheap. I was looking in-store and online for a credenza and they were going for 600+ dollars, which we could just not afford. So I went to a garage sale and found one in almost perfect condition for $60.
4. Simple Dining Room Decor
Decor is the best and the worst thing to do when putting a home together. It gets expensive real fast… If you let it.
- Use What you have – It’s amazing what you can come up with when you shop your own cupboards.
- Shop second hand – Family members, thrift stores, craigslist, and second hand stores are great places to find good home decor.
- Take the time to look/shop – Some great places to find affordable decor is stores like Marshalls, Ross, and TJMaxx
- Don’t buy it if it’s not exactly what you want – too often I think we want to have that Pinterest-perfect look way too soon. I am guilty of that myself. First thing I want to do is go to Hobby Lobby and from a few $100s on decor. I assure you you probably won’t be satisfied for very long because it isn’t the perfect piece you envisioned for that space.
List of Dining Room Decor Items
- Gold Mirror – This was my splurge item from Amazon
- Basket for cloth Napkins – I found this one for $3 at Marshalls
- Tablecloth – I found min fro $3 at a garage sale
- Books – Thrift Books has so many great options for cheap books
- Essential Oil Diffuser – This was something we already had laying around
- Picture Frame – Bought for $0.50 off of Facebook Marketplace
- Pitcher with Dried Flowers – I found the cream pitcher at Goodwill for $3 and the flowers are dried from a bouquet that someone gave me as a housewarming gift.
- Watering Can – This is my daughter’s she uses to water plants
- Mini Gold Mirror – My sister was getting rid of this
- Plants – The spider one. my sister gave to me. I plan on getting more plants to add to the room but for now a few little ones and a faux one that I had laying around will do.
Some items may be pricier, and that’s okay. Mine was a gold, round mirror. I looked at Goodwill and Ross and I found black ones but there never were gold ones like I wanted. So I splurged on one item and I am very happy I did.
5. Put It All Together
Now this can be all at once, or it could take years. And I assure you, both are okay! There should be no rush into making your house a home. Move things around, experiment and try some different ways to move things around.
Comment below on what you think I should paint my front door and I will write an update post on what I decide.
I hope this helps and I hope you enjoyed this post. Follow along for more home projects.
Interested in Minimizing? Check out how to build a minimalist wardrobe here!
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