Brightening Up the Dining Room

Brightening Up The Dining Room

Submitted By Stuff and Nonsense 

I had to clean my house yesterday for company so I thought it would be a great time to take some photos of what work we've done in some more of our downstairs rooms.

Here's the before picture with navy walls and dated wallpaper. The chandelier that we got on Ebay is already installed (after 4 or 5 attempts).

Here is what is looks like now with the icky wallpaper gone and the dark walls and trim brightened up with light paint.

The table was a local Ebay purchase and the chairs came from the church where my dad and grandfather were pastors and where my parents were married.

The china cupboard was from the Pennysaver years ago and the curtains are from a junk shop in New Brighton called Capo's. It's the kind of shop that is cram-jammed with stuff and the guys who work there know exactly where everything is. Love it.

The opposite side of the room. The desk was my husband's grandma's.

This is one of my favorite things in the whole house. We call it our autograph wall and I got the idea from a wedding I attended last summer where they had everyone sign a picture of the new couple. I'd been raking my mind for wall art ideas and when this one came to me. I love the graphic quality of it as well as the happy feeling I get when I see the signatures of those we love. Makes a great conversation piece too.

This is the mantle...which changes frequently, of course.

The following are all pieces bought at junk shops for a few dollars each.

It's not finished yet. But then, no room in my home ever seems 'finished.'

Half the fun of a house is changing it!                          

                                                 

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

Other beautiful dining rooms:

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How to Update Your Vertical Blinds!

How to Update Your Vertical Blinds!

Submitted By Sassy Sanctuary

I have a design dilemma. I have a bay window with a sliding glass door that leads to my back yard. When I moved in it was dressed with VERTICAL BLINDS. Yuk! I told my husband when we were house hunting that those would be the first thing to go. Well, that was three years ago and they are STILL THERE! Why didn't I get rid of them right away? Well, it was a little more complicated then I imagined.

Because I was dealing with a bay window, I couldn't hang regular drapes over the door without addressing the windows that flank it. I had to consider the bay as a whole and I ended up placing two panels of curtains flanking the bay itself. I was able to hang them about a foot above the actual window which added much needed height to that side of the room. I felt it was the best solution for the bay itself, but I still needed to cover the door for privacy reasons. Whatever I put in its place had to be fully and easily functional. Those doors are the only exit to the backyard and are used daily. Ideally I would have just used blinds or shutters but they just don't work with a sliding door. I even considered making my husband rip the whole thing out and put in a pair of french doors, but that was cost prohibitive. So the vertical blinds stayed and I just lived with them because they were functional.

Well, my kids forced my hand. The other day they thought it would be fun to pull EVERY SINGLE vertical slat down and broke at least half! I had two choices, buy more vertical blinds (which I couldn't bring myself to do) or finally come up with a good solution. Well, they say necessity is the mother of all invention and it hit me.

HANG CURTAINS ON THE EXISTING VERTICAL BLIND HARDWARE!

(sorry about the picture quality. I wanted to get a "before" image but it was the worse lighting imaginable. As you can see, the blinds were looking pretty sorry)

Here's what I decided. White sheers were going in its place. White because I wanted them to relate to the other blinds in the bay and sheer so that I could have some light filtering through. The fabric was actually very tricky. I wanted something that allowed some light but they needed to still provide privacy so they couldn't be too sheer. I also had to consider texture. I didn't want it to end up looking like a sheet! I found a nice, white gauzy fabric (it also happen to be on sale for $2 a yard!) and I was set.

* Please note: I am a very beginner seamstress and a very lazy one. I only measure when absolutely necessary and will cut every corner possible. If I can do this,ANYONE can do this!

Here's what you do. Measure the height and width of your door. Mine was seven feet high by five feet wide. You need to add extra width to give it some fullness so I added an extra three feet. (Remember to add a couple of extra inches for seam allowances) My fabric was four feet wide so I was going to have to piece two panels together. I placed the right sides together and did a simple zigzag stitch and then trimmed my fabric as close to the seam as possible. (Yes, I have a raw edge but it made the seam the least noticeable.) Then sew a simple hem on the two sides and the bottom. In order to hang my panel to the blind clips, I was going to add rings to the top. To reinforce where the rings would go I folded the top down about a inch and hemmed. (A) This made the area double thinkness. I then did a top stitch above where the rings would go to reinforce the top. (B) For the rings I got 3/8" eyelets and a setter. I took the width of my panel and divided be the number of clips I had and determined I needed twenty one rings every five inches.(C) Follow the directions on the box and set the rings. I placed a cutting board beneath me to protect my counter but please consider the surface you are working on. DO NOT do this on top of a stone/tile counter or floor! You have to hit your setter with a hammer fairly hard and several times.

Once your rings are in place you can hang your curtain. I clipped each ring into the clips alternating the direction so that it made a wave. Thats it! It was so simple...

Ahh... and so much better!

The best part? Fully functional and cost less then $30! Gotta love it!

                                               

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

Other home beautifying ideas!

Beautiful Shirred Curtain Tutorial

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A Dining Room Chair Makeover

A Dining Room Chair Makeover

Submitted By A Girl and a Key

Remember these Louis XVI style square back chairs I snagged from Craigslist for only $125 for all four?

They have slowly but surely been receiving updates on a weekly basis and they are finally complete! They went from this...

Please Read More >>

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Beautiful Country Charm Kitchen And Dining Room!

Beautiful Country Charm!  

Kitchen And Dining - Before and After 

Submitted by It's a Wannabe Decorator's Life

Hey all, this is Cassity, I just wanted to share this kitchen with you from Erin. I love the details she added and the bright happy feel of the space.  And who wouldn't love this amazing antique ladder rack, that she used, I wish I had a place for one in my house!!  Tell me what you think of all her amazing hard work!

Here she is, in all her tract home glory! You probably have these same cabinets too. Stained oak! To me, yuck!!  Now, some people really like this look and if you do, I hope your not offended that I don't.  Everytime I walked in my kitchen, the grain in that oak just screamed at me!  

In my home, you can see the kitchen from the living room, and I hated that! Because those cabinets were awful to me!

I tried to add some charm by bringing in my great Grandmother's table that I painted.  It helped, a little.  I just couldn't help feeling that those cabinets needed a dose of pretty.  I wanted so badly to paint them!  But, I was scared to death of that task.

But, I conquered those fears, and went for it!!  I won't lie, it was a monumental task!  But they are beautiful to me now!  Painted cabinets just make me smile!  Everytime I walk in my kitchen, I get this feeling of joy and pride that I did that!

Please Read More >>

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One Hot Bottom, uh I mean Hutch!

I know, I know, a very naughty title.  Forgive me, but I really am talking about the base of this hutch.

Check out the 1st and 2nd post about this piece if you have the chance!

Originally the hutch base had three doors.  The thing that bothered me the most about the original look is that the spacing didn't match the top doors.  Function wise, the middle section didn't move, it was nailed in place and only the two outside doors worked.  AND the doors were literally 2 inches thick, so the space inside was limited and I hate wasted space, I want this hutch to store stuff so I needed more space.

When coming to a look we liked design wise, we tried to copy as many details from the top that we could.  That doesn't mean that all the details were the best, but that the two pieces needed to work together so we took our cues from above (ha ha).

We started by adding a face frame to the sides.  Because the original doors were the front face frame and we wanted to make the new piece a little deeper, so technically the original frame sits back a few inches.  One detail we added to make it look a little more classy are the side panels. We made the sides to match the existing upper doors, and the new base doors. 

For the bead detail, we found a molding that worked and ripped it down on the table saw to the proper width, and applied it on instead of using the router.  At this point we also made the feet an inch or two longer than the original base cuz I mentioned earlier that we wanted it a little taller.

Justin then made a basic face frame and nailed it in place to the front.  It overlapped the side panel about an 1/8 of an inch, similar to the existing top.

I wanted the doors to match the glass doors, so he made those to look as close as he could.   But, one thing we did have to change a bit were the door dimentions.  Because we added the face frame it would have made the two side doors really small, so we had to tweek it a bit (along with the drawer section) but we think it turned out okay, see if you notice)

Lastly, when I was looking for inspiration on how I wanted my hutch to look once updated, I saw a lot of molding wrapped bases.  So, we went for that look, and it has teh added benefit of keeping little baby things, cat toys and junk from falling under the furniture.

Before paint this is what the piece looked like.  (so much better than before... you should really scroll up there and check it out)

Now on to putting humpty-dumpty back together again...  Here are all the pieces coming together.  You can see in this picture that the stencil is really subtle.  I am liking this....

I decided that I didn't want to have to spray paint the inside shelves outside and I was going to ignore them completely, but it took a while to finish and install the doors, so one day I just sat down and painted the interior.  I am glad I did.

Trying on the doors for size...

Then off again to paint... now for the fun stuff dishes.  I realize for some people's taste I may have too much stuff in there, but I am really happy with it, and it changes occasionally, but not too often, and not too much.  This really is about function for me cuz I totally have a dish fetish so I need storage.

Quick reminder of the old:

And FINALLY with the doors back in place and painted!  Now all we need to finish are the drawers.

Hey everyone!  Hope you can't see the dirty dishes I am neglecting in the reflection of this bowl!

Here just so you feel satisfied, I photoshopped (not so expertly) some drawer fronts on there. 

What do you think about our project?

It only took me about 10 months to blog about it...

Remodelaholic is written by Cassity and Justin. Cassity has a degree in interior design and Justin is a landscape architect, so we adore everything that makes up a HOME! We love to share home remodeling ideas and projects we’re working on. From huge kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, there isn’t anything we won’t try to tackle (at least once!). We are in the midst of our third whole home renovation, (check out house 1 and house 2 as well, so there should be a lot more inspiration coming your way. We hope that you will stop by often for home design inspiration, tutorials, interior design tips, delicious recipes and what going on in our family life.

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Kitchen Renovations Wanted!

Hey Ya'll, I just got my Country Living email... (such a time thief!)

Ah, sigh!  So Amazingly wonderful, go check out the rest of the tour here.

The point?  It reminded me that 

I am on the lookout for some great DIY Kitchen renovations to feature.   Interested?  Please email me a link to your renovation!  remodelaholic @ gmail dot com 

(w/o spaces you know the drill...)!  

Go here for all the rules of features!  

Or feel free to ask any questions via email, I will try to answer!

Read more...