Now Introducing: My Ugly Dining Room...(aka Naptime Redecorating Part 1)

So my husband and I bought a new house last year after realizing the 1100 sq. ft. home we lived in was simply not working for us anymore.  With our daughter beginning to move around like crazy, we started looking...and we kept looking for about 6 months until we finally found and closed on the house we now live in.

There are a lot of great things about this house (otherwise, why would we have bought it, right?).  But, it had definitely been decorated in the 80's (and not well - even for the 80's, in my opinion) and then never touched again.

My husband, who is not a big fan of change, has managed to keep me from starting any projects for almost a year, until now that is.

The first room in the house redo will be (and has always been in my mind) the dining room.  Now I hate the decor in this room so much, that typically when people come over I have the lights off and I casually exclude it from the tour...sometimes I flip the light on and make a joke about the "pepto bismal and puke" color scheme.  We don't eat in it, and it's not because we don't want to...it's because I can't stand looking at it.

So here it goes, the beginning of my journey into making this house our home.

My first step was to do a little furniture rearranging so see what I was working with.  Essentially, I wanted to fix the problem that when anyone was sitting at the ends of the table, you had quite a hard time getting to your seat on the other side of the table...

Ok, much better and tons of opened up space now! I could even bring food in from the kitchen without dropping it on the unlucky soul who chose the end seat as I climbed over them getting in from the kitchen doorway (on the left).  The only problem I have now is that the pink is more visible....

So, let's see what we have here to work with (and against) in this room.


1. The pink and green.  It must go. It must go now.

FIX:  Serious painting. 

2.  Speaking of which, the upholstery on my captains chairs is terrible... 

I found them at a yard sale for $5 for the pair.  Totally worth it! Especially since I had no dining room chairs.....And I just now realized that these chairs match the pink and green pretty well.  That's kinda random.

The other 4 chairs i have arent horrible, but they don't match.  They actually go with the table that I use in my breakfast room.  

FIX:  Since I cant afford new chairs, slipcovers were the way to go here for me. I used some Kohl's cash I had and a good sale and scored a great deal on these Sure Fit Short Dining Chair Slipcover.

3.  My table has seen better days.

It was a beautiful table at one point.  My mom bought it in the 70s and has been dragging (sometimes literally...it's heavy!) it though our numerous moves from house to house.  I'm afraid my brother and I were also pretty rough on it over the years.  A few years back she gave it to me and I've been wanting to refinish it ever since.

FIX:  Sanding, sanding, sanding and more sanding....then a bit of stain and polyurethane.

4.  This rug.

It came with the house and it's in good condition but it's definitely not my style.

FIX:  Hide it in the attic and sell it the next time we have a yard sale.

5.  This cute little garden window.

I love this window.  It's such a unique architecture feature in the room.  But right now it's just a strange little hole at an odd place on a pink wall. 

FIX:  Highlight the window somehow in the room design.
6.  The chandelier is ok...I guess.

I mean, I don't hate it but...well it's boring.

FIX:  I'm not sure yet. I think I will do the rest of the room first and decide on what needs to be done to it later.

7.  The humidistat.

It's old and unsightly. 

FIX:  I need to think of a creative (and cheap...don't forget cheap!) way to hide this thing....I'm open to ideas!

At this point, I've removed all of the chair rail and bottom molding.  It's looking way better already!

My goals during nap-times this week:

1.  Spackle Spackle Spackle!  There's a ton of nail holes to fill in now that I ripped all the molding off. 

2.  Begin sanding. The paint on there is rather glossy so in addition to sanding the spackle, I plan on sanding all the walls lightly.  I also need to begin sanding down the table.

3.  Painters tape to protect the floor.  I'll be taping newspaper down to the edges then using a tarp to cover the rest of the floor. 

Expenses so far:

Slip-covers - $50

Paint - $85

A few random painting supplies: $4 <-- just a note, don't forget to check the dollar store...they actually have quite a few project supplies!  I found 9' x 12' painters tarps there as well as big packs of sandpaper.

Yard sale chairs - $5

Running total: $144

I feel like this might be a long week of prep work....