Dining Room Makeover {On a Budget}

 

My six-month dining room makeover was complete two days after Thanksgiving. 

Oh the irony.

It was still very usable and worked out great for Turkey Day...I just happened to stumble onto the six most delicious Craigslist chairs the Saturday following the "big" day {and by stumbled onto, I mean I've been stalking four separate Craigslist city lists for them for the entiresix months}. Their purchase brought the never-ending dining room makeover to a close and within budget thanks to my good money management. Amen and hallelujah.

And truthfully, the dining room wasn't even on my makeover list for this year...it sort of just "happened". You may remember the saga from June...

"If you give Kristi new floors, she'll want to paint the walls before they're installed. And if she decides to paint the walls, she'll want to paint stripes. And if she's repainting the walls with stripes, she'll want to redo the window treatments. And if she's redoing the window treatments, she'll want to paint the backs of the hutches blue to match the new window treatments. . ."

I've said it before, but the previous decor was quickly turning into Sunday dinner at Grandma's. And I am more of a Saturday Night Supper Club kind of gal {at least that's how I picture myself in my mind...I suppose technically more of an on-the-couch-sweatpants-wearin'-watching-Downton-Abbey-with-a-diet-soda-in-one-hand-and-laptop-in-the-other kind of gal. Potato-PotAHto}.

I didn't think too much of my old dining room until an older lady from church {and I mean older with all due respect} came by one day. She told me my dining room reminded her of her mother's current dining room...at the nursing home. I about died, y'all. 

So when I realized we were getting the new floors, I turned to David and told him I was going to take on redoing the dining room while we were in the process of redoing the floors. Seemed easy enough. {Insert eyeroll}

Looking back, I'm quite thrilled I was dumb enough to take on the project in the midst of the craziness of installing new floors. My stupidity resulted in something I'm actually kind of proud of. 

Buh-bye, nursing home decor.

 

I've done tutorials and posts over several of the projects in here over the past few months. Here's the breakdown {click on the links to see the full posts}:

1. Painted Drop-Cloth Drapes

2. DIY Drapery Rods on the Cheap

3. Grandma's Dresser Gets a Makeover

4. DIY Starburst Mirror {Made from Posterboard & Love}

5. Painting Stripes Easy & Flawlessly

6. Gussied Up Dollar Store Candle Holders

7. New Vinyl "Wood" Flooring

The green took quite a bit of primer and paint to get rid of. The beauty of getting the new flooring was skipping the drop cloth ritual. Liberating.

Again, I have a tutorial on how we created the flawless stripes in here.
We did them on the two shorter walls to add more depth to a short & squatty room.

And next came the flooring installation. Oh, sweet Jesus, this was a crazy day.

But soooooo worth it.
Nothing like a nice new palette to work with.

Next, I created the DIY Drapery Rods.

These were inspired by Allison from The House of Hepworths.

These ended up being a necessity after I realized how heavy the drapes were. Gah.

After the rods came the drapery painting.

Which also created a lovely blue floor in my garage. 

Funny how drop cloths don't actually absorb paint.

Blue garage floor=fun and funky custom drapes

The Nester inspired me to make my own DIY Starburst Mirror out of posterboard.

Then I poked around in my parents' shed and found a dilly of a project:

my great grandmother's dresser. 

It got a fun makeover in my Oops Blue. 

I also pulled off the backs of the china cabinets and painted them with that Oops Blue as well. I painted the "wrong" side of them, so if I ever want to go back to the wood sides, I can just flip them back over.
These belonged to my late uncle, then to my mother, and about seven years ago, were passed on to me when my parents down-sized into their new home. My uncle did all of the leaded glass in the doors himself.

I truly wanted a new drum-shade chandelier in here...but at $500+, it just wasn't in my budget.
Maybe one day...

For now, I bought some sparkly beaded garland, in my favorite shade of blue, on our Salado trip and simply wrapped pieces of the garland on each arm of the chandelier, as well as one strand at the top.

It just adds some extra bling-a-ding-ding up there.

And of course, the night before Thanksgiving, I put together some centerpiece candles to use for our meal...which I'm really pleased with how they came out.
They started out as Dollar Tree candle holders! To see that tutorial, click here.

And the final touch....THE CHAIRS!

I've seriously been looking for Parsons' Style chairs for quite some time for this room. I wanted some that didn't have host/hostess chairs, so I could keep them just on the sides of the table. The table also belonged to my late uncle...and I LOVE the big chunky base legs it sits on. I wanted to nix those end chairs to show off her pretty legs. And I'm completely flabbergasted that I stumbled onto the perfect chairs on Craigslist. What a find! The previous owner was getting rid of them for a few minor reasons {nothing wrong with them...just not right for her home}. I was only too happy to take these off her hands for a bargain.  

I couldn't be happier with the new space. While I know the floors were a huge part of this makeover, we received those at no monetary cost to us. Which brought this makeover to less than $400 for everything...I was kind of excited about that one! Had I bought those chairs new, they would have been over $1,000 {I had been contemplating that purchase for the whole six months}. So happy I waited!!

  

Duck-Taped Office Chair

 

I've been in need of an office chair for awhile. I was using an adorable red wicker chair. While it was, indeed, adorable, it felt horrendous on my back. My husband didn't understand my conundrum of just purchasing an "off-the-rack" chair from Office Depot and moving on. 

I wanted something FUN! Not just the average Office Depot chair. I've seen so many cute covered office chairs on Pinterest...but I don't sew. So, I've been in a pickle over this for quite some time. 

Then my neighbor told me about all the stuff she was getting rid of in preparation for her move. She mentioned a ripped office chair...I thought I could just use it until I found that elusive *perfect* chair I'd been searching for.

And then, I saw a pin where someone had covered some boxes in this stuff {I *think* it was from the House of Hepworths}. And the project was born.

While I'm not a huge zebra-print fan, I needed something in black and white {and apparently none of my stores carry the damask pattern}.

I started by taping over the ripped spot.

Then worked in the panels that were already on the chair. At first, I tried to keep the seams, but I ended up just taping over them, too. It was easier that way.

The crease gave me a bit of trouble. But, every time the tape was unruly, I could just pull another piece off the roll and tape over the ugly one. There are several areas that have 3-4 layers of tape on them. That was the beauty of this stuff.

Since I only wanted to mess with the front, the trick to making it look purposeful was to work with the piping. I tucked the tape under the piping for a more finished look.  I also altered the directions of my tape and that didn't seem to look weird, either {which kind of surprised me}.

 The entire project took less than two hours...and I ended up only using four of the rolls of tape. So instead of dropping a couple of hundred on a new office chair, this one cost about $16 in tape.

In a couple of months, I'll let you know how it wears. I'm sitting in it right now and it feels great! It really feels similar to the leather. And I don't think she's a "temporary fix" anymore...she's here to stay.

Easiest chair makeover ever.

{i linky-party here}

and at Savvy Southern Style

Refinishing Grandma's Dresser {Tutorial}

 

About a week ago, this old dresser showed up at my house. And by showed up at my house, I mean I begged my dad a week earlier when I was poking around in his shed to bring this dresser to my house. And being the kind man he is, he totally obliged.

This was originally my great-grandparents' dresser. We're not sure how old it is...but my mom says she knows for sure it was in their house at least from 1939 on...if not before.

It had definitely seen better days. I *think* this drawer may have been dropped on this corner at some point.

By no means are we professional wood-refinishers...but this is how we chose to fix it. We basically did a bit of "cosmetic surgery" to cover up the damage using the above products as well as a thin strip of wood.

My husband was kind enough to help me with the repair process:
We soaked the wood pieces {cut to the width of the drawer} in water for about an hour until they were somewhat pliable. And by pliable, I mean we bent them and talked to Jesus about not letting them break. We used small finishing nails and wood glue to secure the piece to the front of the drawer, covering the damaged area. We repeated it on both top drawers so it looked planned {and *somewhat* original}. We sunk the nails with the sinker and filled with putty for a seamless finish.

Nobody's more surprised than me {or my dad} that this actually worked.

I filled in all the gaps...again, I like the seamless look. 

Then we moved it to the 110 degree garage to finish working on it {or start, I suppose...that was just groundwork with the repair}. I still don't understand why I couldn't have worked on it inside...apparently everyone else wanted to "breathe clean air" or whatever. Pffft. It was one hot & sweaty week working on this thing.

It got a good cleaning, and then the refinishing process began:

Whenever I've refinished pieces before, I've used a product called "Strip-Eze" {blush}, which has worked great. But, because I loathe wearing gloves when working on anything, I thought this may be a new cool product to try. It was a great product, however, I'm such a moron sometimes and tend to not follow rules. I know better than to not wear gloves. I should have worn gloves, regardless. That guy in the photo on the can is wearing gloves, for goodness' sake.

Spraying the product....I only used this on the top since I was staining it {and painting the bottom}. I purposefully wanted the bottom to stay brown {an awful outdoor-house paint that my great-grandpa hosed down every piece of furniture we have from them in}, so it would show through when I distressed it. It was more for sentimental reasons than anything...like a part of great grandpa's paint fiasco still living on.

The arrows are pointing out the new trim repair pieces. They also show where we filled in previous hardware holes since we were moving the knobs to new places.

Again, living on the edge with my glove-free self. Since this piece is at least 70+ years old, I'm sure I shaved off a few days of my life since there's some serious probability of lead-based paint here. Oh, Lawsy. Feel free to judge my non-regulatory, free-willing, law-breaking, glove-neglecting, fume-breathing self.
I'm baaaaaad. 

I then sanded the entire piece. I didn't sand the sides as well as the top, since I wanted some of that paint to show through. But I sanded them enough so they'd have plenty of tooth for paint to grip to.

After it's sanded, I wiped it down completely with a tack cloth. At this point, some people {as in more professional-types} would use bleach or Oxalic Acid to complete the color- removal process and bleach out any other imperfections. Since I was using a super-dark stain, I wasn't worried about that. And I was fine with any minor imperfections since I was, in fact, weathering it as well.

I used Minwax's Dark Walnut and used a staining-sponge to apply it {don't my nails look super sexy during this process? That's some hotness right there.}. I did three layers of stain, lightly sanding with very fine sandpaper {and wiping with tackcloth} between coats.

Once the top was pretty much done & dried {it took a couple of days to completely dry}, I turned my attention to the bottom.

Again, I purposefully did not use a primer on this particular piece. I wanted that crummy old house-paint to show through where I sanded {sentimental old me}. Normally, this needs a primer...but I didn't want that to show through as well. I used my stand-by $5 oops-paint aqua {it doesn't have an actual name since it was an oops-can I stumbled onto at Lowe's}. Incidentally, my husband graciously pointed out that the original $5 can of oops-paint has now cost us nearly a hundred bucks in subsequent cans of matched paint. We just keep going back for more. Love it. At least I can brag about my bargain for that first can.

Normally I use my palm-sander to distress furniture, but this time I grabbed my sanding block with medium-grit paper. I didn't want to over distress this particular piece {although it sure did that to me, so turn-about is fair play, but I digress}. I only sanded the edges on this one.

I did the next step a little unconventionally. I didn't want brush marks and I didn't want the lack of control of a roller. So, I used a roller cover and held it to dab. I mixed a 1:1 stain/water mixture and dipped my "tool" into it. Then, I dabbed the mixture onto the sanded edges. It was so hot outside {even at nine at night}, that it dried faster than I intended...I seriously couldn't keep up with the wiping process after dabbing.

As I mentioned above, after the stain was applied to the sanded areas, I wiped it up like crazy...leaving behind a faint "weathery" look.

I then finished it off with a coat of satin polyurethane {I actually did three coats on the top...again, lightly sanding with fine paper/wiping with tackcloth between each coat}. I knew I would be using the top a lot more...this piece went into the dining room and I know how hard I can be on buffet-type pieces, in terms of serve-ware and such.

And here she is in the dining room! I purchased glass knobs from HobLob to use on her. If you remember, we re-situated where the knobs went by filling in previous holes with filler.

These are not the original lamps I talked about putting on here...but I found these on CL for a steal and thought they were a more appropriate size for the dresser.

What a treasure to have such a family heirloom in our home.

Thanks, Mom & Dad. I promise I'll treat her right.

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