Dining Room Before and After: From 1980s Orange Sherbert to NOW

by LibrarianTellsAll

Easy

We bought a 1989 time capsule of a house last year. Now we're slowly bringing it into the present, one room at a time. Today, I'd like to share our dining room with you. It's changed a lot in the last year. So, come on in!

dining room before and after from 1980s orange sherbert to now, dining room ideas, lighting, painting

The house doesn't have an eat-in kitchen, so this is where we eat every meal (and play a lot of board games!). So making this room look clean and nice, and doing it FAST, was a high priority.

The first time we saw this room, the walls were the color of orange sherbet and covered with a thin film of brownish nicotine. It smelled terrible! And let's not even talk about that light fixture; it was full of bugs. But when I saw the gleaming hardwood floors and two (two?!) sets of French doors, I knew we could turn this room into something beautiful.

Before we even moved in, we had every surface in the house primed and painted to seal away the smoke smell forever. The white paint made the room look clean and bright, and I'm so glad we painted the trim and doors black. I think it looks stylish, in a Kate Spade kind of way. We added white blinds for privacy and light control, and I like the high contrast of white blinds against the black doors.

I cleaned up the old light fixture and sold it on Craigslist. The new chandelier was my birthday present. My husband and I installed it ourselves, and it felt like a crazy corporate team building exercise. "Now you hold this, and I'll attach that, and can you reach the instructions while I do this?"

I fell in love with the rug online, and stalked it until Wafair dropped the price. Why were they temporarily charging half price? No clue! Adding a rug made the room feel so much cozier, and I love the subtle tone on tone pattern. It doesn't call attention to itself, it feels great underfoot, and it hides small spills really well. Shh! *grin*

None of the furniture is new. The buffet came from a thrift store. The table and chairs were hand me downs from my parents. The Spanish style cabinet was given to me by my late aunt, and I love that it doesn't match anything else. It's the outlier. It's special! And right now, it's full of board games... with some stacked underneath. Oops!

A stocked bar on top of the buffet, a mirror to bounce light around, a whimsical gallery wall, and some fresh flowers finished off the room. Or did it?

Since there are only five chairs, and they are NOT comfortable, they will eventually go. If you have a chair suggestion, please let me know in the comments! We're hoping for something UN-upholstered, so we don't have to be too precious with them. This is not a formal dining room; we eat here every day and we don't want a spill to feel like a big deal.

I'm also thinking about sewing two long, pleated curtain panels to flank the French doors. It would add a bit of softness and cut down on the room's echo-y quality. What do you think/ Would you hang curtains there?

We put a lot of time into choosing everything for this room, and a lot of work into making it happen. I hope you like it! If you like what you see, I hope you'll stop by my blog and visit there, too. The blog post linked below includes a full source list at the end. Including paint colors!

Enjoyed the project?

You can do it! Saved to your projects

Frequently asked questions

Have a question about this project?

Ask a Question

Comments

Join the conversation

3 of 7 comments

Stacey B on Jan 24, 2015
beautiful place to eat and be merry!

Like Reply
- LibrarianTellsAll on Jan 26, 2015
  @Stacey B I like to hear that - it's exactly what we were going for! :)
  
  Like
Ruth on Apr 04, 2016
It is a very well done room, I would absolutely add the curtains. Maybe you could add some print cushions to make your chairs more comfy and by using print it would hide any little mistakes :-)

Like Reply