Inspiration Board— Dining Room

I have a dining room inspiration board!  I have a dining room inspiration board!!  Can you picture me jumping around in excitement?  Because I am!  Two months after completing construction—which you can read about it here — and a handful of weekends looking through furniture and antique stores, I finally have an inspiration board that both DH and I are excited about.  

1- Love, love, love this tin antique mirror I picked up for $100 at my fave antique store!  It's 36" in diameter and really heavy!  Hopefully an anchor in a stud will keep this beautiful round mirror with its original glass hung over our new server!


2- I love the curves and classic movement of this Josephine side chair from Ethan Allen.  Of course I had to add modern fabrics for a dose of personality.   


3-  I picked a child safe funky green and blue fabric pattern for the back of the chair and  sand colored fabric for the seat and back. 


4- If this chandelier looks familiar that's because it currently hangs over our existing dining room table.  I know it's a design risk having a rectangular chandelier hang over a circle table, but I think it will work.  Want to hang your own light fixture?  Check out our DIY instructions and avoid spending $100+ on instillation.   


5- Our layout!  Nicole, a designer at Ethan Allen, and I worked together to create this floor plan.  Don't be afraid to leverage a professional!  I'm the first to admit  that despite having an eye for decor I lack the ability to visualize dimensions and movement in a room. 


6- DH spotted this Ethan Allen windchester dining table on the showroom floor and calls it his "statement" piece.  Without the leaf, the table spans 60" seating 6 and up to 78" with a leaf seating 8.  Can't wait to have Thanksgiving dinner on this table!   

7- My DIY curtains— read about them here!  Just finished another pair for only $74!  That sewing machine is getting a lot of use.  


8- Inspiration-  How do you tie a kitchen/dining room open layout?  With a rug!  A soft green pet and child friendly carpet (suggested by Nicole) will make the room flow from dining to kitchen room and anchor all of the bright colors we have on the walls and fabric.  


9- Our wall color.  Hands down Benjamin Moore makes the best blues ever!  Whether you color match it at your local hardware store or you buy it at BM, you can't go wrong with Santa Monica Blue. 

10-  By now I've probably overused the word "love", but, I can't help but absolutely LOVE this howell server from Ethan Allen.  What do I love about it?  The angles, the shape, the hardened leather covering the entire piece.   This piece is the perfect example of an infusion of contemporary (it's shape) and classic styles.

Dining Room—Construction Done!

We have a dining room again!  Can you believe we got it all done in just two weeks?!

I'm really happy with how everything turned out despite all of the noise and dust.  Two weeks post-construction and I can vaguely remember how bad the dust really was.  I think about how amazing it is to look at our "before" pictures and see the difference we've made, especially since 80% of this project was DIY!

Before: I'm so excited that we took this room from 70s drab

After: To modern classic!  (Don't mind the first apartment furniture!)












Here's the recap:

We demo'ed the room to the studs, took down a load bearing wall, and added a beam.  We outsourced the  beam building and our HM also stuck around to teach DH and I how to remove the existing wall and replace it with the beam.

We had an electrician wire the room for recessed lighting—electricity is not something I'm comfortable around yet—added insulation, and drywalled our first room!

We breezed through the remaining items on our to-do list after the drywall mud dried.  Once dry, we sanded, painted, added molding, designed and built the wainscoting.

I can't wait to create a dining room inspiration board and find great furniture!  I really want a round dining room dinner table and funky chairs.  

What do you think?

Dollars and Cents


Yep, I admit it, I blew my budget.   But there is good news; we finished the project on time!  Well almost, we still need to caulk the crown molding seams.  

We blew our budget by $500 not factoring in the estimated $500 we lost in materials in the coffered ceiling debacle.  So $500 isn't really that bad right?

Where did our $3500 go? A large chuck of our budget went to the expected big ticket items including the load bearing wall ($1300), the removal of the construction material ($500), and recessed lighting ($400).  A big chunk also went to the expensive crown molding ($350) DH fell in love with while traveling on our honeymoon.  Insulation, paint, drywall, the remaining molding and wainscoting cost an estimated $950.  

Was it worth it?  Definitely.  The removal of the load bearing wall really opens up the space and flow and it's a great solution to the 600sqf addition that would take forever to save for.

Almost There— Dining Room

We got a ton done this weekend!  It's actually starting to look like we have a dining room again.  And, to be honest, I'm so ready for this project to be over.   Sixteen days in and I need a break from all of the dust and noise.  I need to eat at a dining room table again and not on my couch.
  
We started the weekend sanding the room and creating a dust storm.  TIP-  OPEN WINDOWS and cover the doorways when you do this.

It took a few hours to sand the drywall mud

DH looks like he's smiling as he applies drywall primer and sealer, but don't be fooled he was as miserable as I was. 

PVA Primer and Sealer preps new drywall for paint

We have wainscoting in the living room and want to continue the pattern through out the house.  measured the wall 36" from the floor and used a laser leveler and blue chalk to mark where we'd paint the blue and white paint.  

Mom and Dad lending a hand

Nine months after moving in DH and I can paint in our sleep!  We used Benjamin Moore's Santa Monica blue in a flat finish for the top of the wall, Behr's Snow Fall in semi-gloss for the wainscoting, and Behr's Swan Wing for the ceiling.  We painted the ceiling and moldings in different shades of white so that they don't blend into each other and you can easily see the crown molding's design when up against the ceiling.

After painting we tackled the coffered ceilings.  Unfortunately, DIY coffered ceilings weren't meant to be and I'm going to need a separate post to walk you through my melt down.

What DIY projects did you tackle this weekend?  How did you handle your first major construction project?

Everybody's Working For The Weekend

This weekend is going to be legendaryyyyy!  Walls are up, sanding is done and there's a laundry list of must-do's.  We're tackling the painting, the coffered ceilings, door framing, and molding.  We'll probably need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

We have walls again!

Painting Pro

Dining Room—A Slow Day

Today was just one of those days where nothing on our must-do list got crossed off.  We had a late start because of a few hiccups with the electrician who didn't have the right diameter of recessed lighting and drywalling a ceiling really sucks!    

What did we do?

All of my center load bearing boxes for the coffered ceiling are done!  Only 14 T's and corners left! 

My dad and I also tackled some of the drywall for the ceiling.   It took all of three minutes for me to utter my first curse word of the day.  Drywall really sucks!  The darn things are super heavy and its not easy screwing them into unleveled 71year old floor joists! 

While trying to recover from total muscle failure, I tackled the insulation on the exterior walls.  One of our goals for the renovation is to make the house more energy efficient.  Our walls are not framed by 2X4s so I had to find an alternative to the traditional thicker pink stuff while keeping within our budget.  We're using this super thin product called Reflectix that not only acts as insulation— has an R value of 14—but as a moisture barrier as well. 

Sneak Peek: Dining Room Rehab

From circa 1970s drab:

To the green that didn't work out:

Saydee Supervising

To the bare bones minus a wall:

We are having so much fun with demo and just completed the load bearing wall with the help of a handyman (HL) who shall now be referred to as HL.   I'm not going to sugar coat the long hours it took to complete the demo, but it's so rewarding to have done it ourselves and save a TON of money.  Demo tends to be my stress release and for DH a pain in the....

We have two weeks and a $3000 budget to rehab the dining room.  Keeping our fingers crossed that we'll get it all done!