I feel like this renovation has been such a long time coming. As I wrote last week in this post, since we converted our spare room to be Ernie’s nursery, our dining room had very much become the dumping ground of the house. It was trying to be a dining room, office, craft room and storage all at once, and frankly it wasn’t doing any of those things particularly well. It was always a mess and Darcie had also decided to add to the ambience of the room and do some of her own artwork on the walls. We decided enough was enough and it became our next project.
Dan had the idea of converting the room into a dedicated office for me, but I couldn’t imagine life without the dining room table so we compromised and agreed that it would remain a office/dining room but that it would become a tidy, nice place to be. Darcie is at the perfect age for crafts at the table and we are also trying to make an effort to eat together as a family so we needed to bear all of that in mind when redoing the room.
Choosing A Colour Scheme
As it is the room that I spend the most time in, Dan was happy to leave the decorating decisions to me, and so off I skipped to B&Q to choose some paint colours. Not literally of course, in reality we wrestled two kids and a pram into the car and drove the short distance from our house to B&Q or ‘the paint shop’ as Darcie calls it. Either way, I was very excited to go and pick my colours.
I decided to take full advantage of this opportunity and go for pink on two of the walls. I spent a long time deliberating between the many, many shades of pink that Valspar* have to choose from. I could have spent longer but between the baby demanding attention, the toddler causing havoc and the boyfriend rolling his eyes, I eventually got the hint and made a decision. They were so helpful at the counter and helped us to decide which finish we wanted for the paint and how much we would need too. The colours I eventually settled on were Snowflake and Rose Satin Slippers for the walls, Grey Matter for the chairs and Crystal Grey for the table legs.
The Table Transformation
The table transformation is one of my favourite parts of the room. The dining room table is over 20 years old and belonged to Dan’s Nan before she kindly gave it to us a few years ago. It had seen better days and when you extend it out, the difference in the wood colour was remarkable. Dan sanded it all down and then painted the legs in the gorgeous Crystal Grey colour from Valspar’s Pantone Collection which we chose in an eggshell finish. He also sanded down the chairs and painted them in Grey Matter which was an eggshell finish too, and I just love how to colours work together in the room. I reupholstered the chairs using an oilcloth fabric tablecloth that I picked up in B&M to use for the table but when I got it home I thought that it would actually be perfect for the chairs. I’m going to go back and buy another of these tablecloths to protect my beautiful new table from my toddler and her Play Doh, paints and anything else she could use to destroy it!
Storage
Previously in the room we had a vintage bureau which was our main storage solution, except for the fact that it really wasn’t a very good solution at all. It was beautiful, and definitely a piece of furniture to keep for a future home, but it just wasn’t right for what we needed. The drawers were actually very small despite it being a bulky item and we had quite a few bigger possessions that just didn’t have a home, such as our printer and speakers. We couldn’t decide what we wanted instead until we came across this shelving unit from Ikea and immediately fell in love with it. The grey colour is perfect and it is just the right size for the wall, giving us so much space to store everything we needed it for. The main purpose of the unit is to store everything that I need for blogging, such as my laptop and printer, photography props and any items that are waiting to be reviews. I also was kindly sent these gorgeous storage baskets* from VonHaus which as the ideal size for storing smaller items such as diaries and notebooks and also any smaller photography props. The baskets are lovely quality and really sturdy so I know they will last me a long time and probably have many purposes throughout that time!
Decor
I have already published a post all about the decor for the room in collaboration with Desenio*. I chose a selection of prints to create my gallery wall which I am so, so pleased with. I really think it gives the room that touch of personality and it really feels like I’ve put my own stamp on it all. We also moved an existing stags head (not real, obvs!) that used to hang above the bureau, to just over the table and I think it looks lovely there. It is right opposite the door into the lounge so it is more visible now. The last thing I want to get for the room is some curtains for the french windows. Usually my working hours are once the kids are asleep and it’s not the nicest thing to sit next to a huge dark window so I want to get either some thick velvet style curtains or maybe some lighter linen ones. I’m going to keep an eye out over the next few weeks and hopefully find something I love.
Before & After
So here are the final before and after pictures. I’m so in love with this transformation and the room has gone from being totally unusable to one of my favourite parts of the house. I forgot to take a picture of how messy the room used to be – this was it tidy before we decorated – so you will just have to take my word for how bad it had got.
Do you have any redecoration projects going on at the moment? I’m now wondering what we can do next!
*this post contains gifted items
