before & after: our dining room transformation
if you’ve been following along on my instagram, you know that austin and i (mostly austin) have been real busy doing all sorts of stuff to our new home! it’s been a lot of trips to home depot for paint, shiplap, light fixtures, cabinet hardware.. all the things.
one of my favorite transformations so far has been the dining room. when we first moved in, it had some blue and tan wallpaper, a small yellow-ish light fixture, very old roller blinds, and natural woodwork. it felt dark and musty before, but once we (finally) got the wallpaper off.. game changer.
the before and after
the wallpaper was the hardest part. first, we thought if we just use joint compound on all the seams and sanded it down, we could start painting no problem. and normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but we accidentally bought the wrong type of paint. once we were finished sanding, we started painting with a water based primer, and immediately noticed that the wallpaper underneath was bubbling. after a few google searches and panicked phone calls to our parents, we just started ripping it all off. and let me tell you - pain. in. the. ass.
since the wallpaper was wet, it was a bit easier to take off but it also took off some of the drywall. after we finally got all the wallpaper off, it was around 9 PM and we decided to just call it quits for the day. the next couple of days, austin and his dad worked on repairing the drywall since it was too damaged to paint over.
before we realized the wallpaper was bubbling.. lol
since the room was so dark before, we knew we wanted to go with all white, which is what we did in our living room too. i never knew there were so many colors and shades of white, which made it so hard to choose. we ended up going with sherwin williams alabaster - eggshell on the walls, semi-gloss on the trim and woodwork.
before we finished painting, we installed a new light fixture that we found at home depot. it was exactly what we were looking for to go over our dining room table. austin bought our table unfinished from holmwood’s and his dad painted/stained it - it’s the perfect farmhouse table for us!
once the room was painted and the new light fixture was up, it was time for the fun part - decorating!
this piece of furniture is probably my favorite in the house. it was a christmas gift from austin’s parents, and it matches our dining room table perfectly! we filled the inside with our nice glassware and on top: a picture frame of us, a small wooden box with glass bottles from revived furniture in derry, magnolia cook books, and a clear glass vase with greenery. above, we added a simple, round, black mirror.
so far, the only thing we have on the walls are these 3 square frames. i knew i wanted to hang some photos in the dining room, and loved these small frames when i saw them in home sense.
and finally - linen curtains! they’re a bit long and we’ve been putting off raising the rods :) curtains are from home sense.
there you have it - our dining room transformation! stay tuned for more house updates!