Dining Room Revamp

When you redo one area of your house, it is so easy to trickle the fun into other areas as well. 

Since the dining room is connected to the kitchen it is only fitting that it got a little love. 

Here she is now:

And here she was before. 

I wish I had some Before-the-Before pictures to show you all. This before is a huge improvement on what was once there. There was a lot of yellow pine: yellow pine cabinets with yellow painted insides, pine trim around the whole dining room, pine wainscotting, honey coloured laminate floors and then our honey coloured table. There was a lot of yellow tones going on. 

Painting the built-in an antique white was the very first project I tackled in the house! 

I did love it. 

It was in improvement.

But as much at I did like it....

 I like it like THIS BETTER!

Here it is just painted but fairly empty. 

I used Behr Pure White trim paint in a semi gloss and the back colour is English Channel by Behr in a semi gloss.  

Now filled and full of life!

How about a panned out view! (Oh look, a cute little Benji. How did he get in here?! haha)

Let's get some close ups.

I wanted to keep things bright and fresh, seeing as it's getting close to spring and all.

So I painted navy and white stripes on an old shelf and used it as a back drop for other pieces that I had in the built in before. Jason brought me home, not one but two, bouquets of flowers the other night and his exact words when giving them to me were, "I tried to pick colours that go with your stuff in this house!" I think he did pretty good! 

I used some corbels that were supposed to go with the open shelving in the kitchen as bookends to hold some of my favorite magazines.

By the way, if you have never read Life:Beautiful then you are MISSING OUT! 

It is the most amazing Christian, devotional, decorating, entertaining, all around magazine I have ever read! 

It comes out every season and it inspirational and beautiful. My mother-in-law sends them up for me from the states, but I bet you could find them somewhere in Canada too!

This little vignette was inspired by the latest Life:Beatiful magazine, where they encouraged you to decorate in a way that reminds you of your faith and gets spiritual conversations started with visitors. 

The jellybeans are a hit with Brooke. If she hurts herself she will say, between sobs, "I think some jelly beans and a TV show will make it all better!"

Since the glass planes are so reflective, I thought I would open the doors so you can really see how beautiful that navy colour really is. 

I love this horse! My mom found him at our local Bibles For Missions thrift store for $2. 

I had to line the shelves with shelf liners (they have some really nice patterns at Walmart right now) because whoever painted the shelves yellow before me, didn't prep the surfaces very well and now the paint chips off very easily. At least it looks pretty still!

My mom also found the soup carafe on the second shelf at the same time as the horse. She's pretty too!

Okay, how about one more look?!

It was the least expensive project of the reno, with just the cost of paint and the few knicknacky things. Probably $50 tops!
However, it took FOREVER to paint everything. But it was all worth it!!

I love how bright and fresh it all looks!

Are you freshening up anything for spring?

Love,

Kat