Dining Room: An updated look

I've finally taken photos of my mini dining room revamp. This room just needed a little sprucing up. Decluttering and accessorizing... and new chairs. We needed new chairs badly.

The wall colors stayed the same, and most of the furniture stayed where it was. But I made minor changes like repainting the molding and lengthening the curtains by adding fabric. 

Without further delay, here are some before & after pairs!

Over the past few months, I knocked everything off of my to-do list. 

• Refinish table
• Replace chairs
• Wash and lengthen curtains
• Fix/patch closed up vent
• Caulk baseboards
• Paint molding
• Organize wardrobe
• Decide what to do with extra chairs
• Hang low coat hooks
• Declutter surfaces

I am trying really very hard to leave the surface of the buffet uncluttered. So far it's working.

Elise has pretty much transitioned out of her high chair and into this green painted chair. I'm happy to have that ugly piece of plastic out of the room for now.

I picked up this new set of coat hooks at Home Goods some months ago. The clear acrylic hooks are exactly the same as the glass doorknobs throughout our house, so I couldn't pass it up. I hung them at kid height underneath our other hooks.

The new chairs and table were pretty much the crux of this transformation and the colors definitely work better with the adjoining living room. Don't cha think?

THE most comfortable chairs are now in my dining room

Our new dining chairs are here! And they coordinate with the freshly painted table pretty well (in that non-matchy matchy way, of course).

Before

Our old chairs were those ubiquitous wood Windsor-ish chairs that I've seen in every thrift store I've ever been in. They were not special and very not comfortable sitting for long stretches. Time for a change.

The world of dining chairs is enormous, so I came up with a few parameters to help guide my decision:

1. They had to be comfortable, which meant I needed to be able to test them out before buying. (Sorry, internet.)
2. The seats needed to be upholstered, preferably the backs too.
3. The upholstery needed to be wipe-able: vinyl, leather, fake leather, whatever. I briefly considered going with heavily scotch guarded fabric, but in the end, I know I would have been constantly worried about sticky hands and stains. I'm low maintenance. I need low maintenance things.

I searched for a set of chairs secondhand, but came up short. I found a few sets, but most older chairs are very petite. We are pretty average-size people, but the smallness of the chairs just did not look inviting. And every single set I found had wobbly chairs. Maybe they could have been fixed, maybe not. I didn't want to take that chance. This is not a "holidays only" kind of dining room. These chairs are going to be used everyday, multiple times a day. Anything uncomfortable or wobbly need not apply.

After a lot more searching, I was able to meet all of my criteria with these slightly mid-century looking chairs from World Market. But I stalked them until they went on sale, and when they did, I pounced.

Regular price, they are $140, on sale for $110, and then I used a couple of coupons (out of the Entertainment Book of all places), which brought them down to about $103 each including tax. Not cheap, but not super expensive either. And we are going to use the heck out of these chairs, so it's money well spent.

I like how they don't stick up too far above the table, maintaining a more casual feel. I'm thinking of adding the green painted chair to the mix, especially as we transition Elise out of the high chair. She can beat that thing up, and it won't really matter. Plus it adds a nice shot of color.

I'm almost finished with the whole room. I have a couple of tiny things to add, some accessorizing and then I'm calling it!

Refinishing our "plain jane" dining table

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I'm sprucing up our dining room and the most obvious thing that needed help was the dining set. It's from my husband's bachelor days and not what I would choose myself. The chairs are on their way out, but the table fits the scale of the room pretty well and it's solid wood.

Before

We eat here everyday and frequently use the table as a desk and an area for projects. It gets a lot of use, and with a toddler, I'm not convinced spending money on a replacement would be a prudent decision at this point in time. With nothing to lose, I decided to give it a makeover.

While I was initially pretty torn about what to do with the table, I decided just to go with one color on the whole thing. I like the two-toned tables, but along with the shape of my table, it would have ended up looking very "farmhousey," and that's not really what I wanted. Also, the combination of a chair color, a leg color and a top color would end up looking way too cluttered.

So I did some experimenting on a piece of scrap wood that was similar to the color of my table. (Disregard those brown crayon scribbles. That was someone else's idea of color experimentation.)

I had a unopened quart of gray paint already on hand (from a free paint promotion), so that's where I started. But it was looking a little flat, so I took the ebony (black) stain originally intended for this project and put a thin coat over top of my paint. It was a little darker, but so much more dimensional! I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.

First thing, I hauled the table down to the garage and propped the top up on a couple of plastic kitchen trash cans. (I don't have saw horses, so next best thing.) Then I sanded the clear coat off with a power sander and coarse 60 grit sandpaper. I did the same with the legs, except that I didn't use the power sander. Hands only!

After cleaning off all the sanding dust, I applied two thin coats of the paint (Glidden's Driftwood Gray) with a small foam roller. I didn't use primer because I wanted the paint color to soak into the wood. (In case the table top acquires any deep gouges, they might be more camouflaged. I'm hoping, anyway.) For the legs, I did use primer, because I couldn't get all of the original finish off in the crevices with my hand sanding.

After two coats of paint on everything, I applied the ebony stain very thinly on top with a rag. I wiped it on and wiped it off immediately, in effect using it more like a glaze than a stain. I rubbed it around in circles and blended as best as I could, but I didn't want the finish to be perfectly uniform. I should note that this process draws attention to every imperfection in the surface: paint bumps, scratches, fuzz, lint, stray hairs, paint brush bristles. Beware!

Also, it's important to wear gloves (latex are OK) when staining. You really don't want stain all over your hands; it doesn't come off easily.

After that was nice and dry (about 24 hours), it was time for a clear coat. I had over half a can of indoor/outdoor polyurethane left over from refinishing the front door, and I thought it might hold up to more abuse than a water-based, indoor-only product. While I love the crystal clear Minwax polys, they don't stand up to water very well. A little prolonged dampness and you get a ghosty white blob on your surface. It usually disappears once it dries out, but really it's just not the right product for a dining table.

This product states can be used for kitchen counters and bar tops, so I figured it would also be safe for a table top.

But before applying it on the table, I put a coat on my tester piece. This type of polyurethane can give a yellow tinge to the final product and I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be too yellow. The difference was very subtle. Hardly noticeable, but it did make the color a little warmer. Full speed ahead!

The directions suggest using a natural bristle brush and cleaning up with mineral spirits. This is too much for me to bother with, so I use an aging paint brush and just throw it away after each coat. Sometimes I even use a large foam craft brush. I don't think "they" recommend using a foam brush for polyurethane, but I've found as long as you use a bit of finesse, with long broad strokes and don't sponge it on (creates bubbles), it looks just fine. Foam brushes produce thinner coats too, so you might have to give it more than two or three. No matter what type of brush you use, be careful not to overwork it. The fewer strokes, the better.

Because I already had the paint and polyurethane, the price of this transformation was equal to the price of a small can of stain -- just $5! (And I hardly used a third of the stain.)

Our new chairs just got here (and I haven't had a chance to take photos yet). They are a similar dark brown to the chair above, so when I was photographing the table, I pulled it over for a color approximation.

This isn't my dream table, but I love the way it turned out. It shed it's former life as the ubiquitous, big box table it once was and almost looks high-end now. (Almost... I'm not kidding myself too much.)

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Linked to: Thrifty Decor Chick's Before & After Party

What should I do with my dining table?

This is our dining table. And I don't really know what to do with it.

I'm set on keeping it because it's in fairly good condition and it's solid wood. But also...

1. It fits the scale of our dining room
2. It has rounded corners (safer at toddler eye height)
3. It's not at all precious (like a new table might be)
4. We already own it (that is, it won't cost anything)

So it's a keeper for now, but I am not at all liking the natural wood tone. It doesn't coordinate with anything else in the room, so a makeover is needed for sure.

I was all set to stain it black until I decided on some chairs that are a dark espresso brown (more on those later). It's not that brown and black won't go together; I just think all that dark furniture (plus the curtains and the rest of the furniture) is going to feel way too heavy. I think something a little lighter is in order, but I want to stay away from brown of any shade if possible.

And here's where I need your help. I have a few ideas, but need some opinions. Here are some rough Photoshop mock ups...

A colored base with a neutral surface? I'm partial to the gray top. Green is just one option for the legs (and this green is a little brighter than I would probably go with).

But there's also something nice about black on those turned legs.

Or I could do all light gray. Might lighten things up significantly.

So what do you think? Dark or light? Color or neutral? Something totally different? All one tone instead of two-toned?

Keep in mind that I will probably be pairing this with dark brown chairs (that I don't actually own yet). Leave me a comment and help me figure this out!

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Update: See how I painted my dining table!

Working around a problem: Closed up return air vent

Some previous owner of our home closed up this return air vent in our dining room, but didn't do much to fix it with a long term solution. There's no longer any ductwork running to this vent. It's just a hole in the floor that's been stuffed up with some insulation and a brown piece of paper.

Before

This register had become a major dirty spot, collecting all sorts of toddler food droppings. It was gross. I needed to find a way to close it up or cover it so that it would no longer be the nucleus of nasty.

The "right" way to fix something like this would be to patch the hardwood, so you wouldn't even realize there had been a hole there. But that would be so so much work, plus refinishing the floor. It's not worth the effort in my opinion. I needed a less complicated solution to the problem, at least for now.

I decided to work with the existing register 1) because it already fit the hole. And 2) it's strong enough to walk on/stand on and I'm not sure anything I create would be as strong.

My first idea was just to cover the register with thin strips of wood (what I had in the house), but even at a thickness of a quarter of an inch, I was afraid it would become a tripping hazard. The wood made the vent more noticeable as well and this is a design issue that might be better off downplayed.

So my second idea was to cover it with something thin -- as thin as possible. And that's when I remembered they make sheets of magnet that you can stick to vents. I found them at Home Depot in the HVAC aisle (a three pack for just under $5), but they were really hard to locate. The intention for the product is to block air flow to unused rooms, etc. But since I was still using the metal register, I figured the magnet would stick to that just as well. It was the perfect size and it was super thin!

But before I could plop down the magnet, I needed to take care of the register itself. It was pretty scratched up and the faux wood grain wasn't exactly attractive in the first place. I painted both the register and the magnet with a coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. I thought about painting some design on the magnet or decoupaging paper on top, but again, I reminded myself that this was a probably a situation where less is more. It doesn't really need to draw attention to itself.

I replaced the register and covered it with the magnet. You can see the indent of the gridwork through the magnet, probably from gravity but more likely from Elise walking on it. I'm not really sure there's anything I can do about that. I tried slipping a thin piece of cardboard between the register and the magnet, but the magnet didn't lay flat enough. I think I'm just going to learn to live with it. It's much better than it was! At least now it is wipeable or sweepable. I can take off the magnet and wash it. Awesome.

Customizing and lengthening store-bought curtain panels

Our dining room curtains were plain and hung too low. Oh, and they were spattered with food too, thanks to a certain toddler. I had been afraid to wash them for fear they would shrink, but the time had come.

My plan was to raise the rod close to the ceiling and add length to the curtains, so any shrinking wouldn't matter anyway. I took the plunge, threw them in the wash and all the old food stains came clean. Woo!

Next was adding length to the panels. I happened upon a two-yard fabric remnant. The colors and pattern were great for the space. It also matched the width of the existing curtain panels (54"). Two yards were all I needed to add length to four panels. (There are also two panels in the adjacent living room that needed the same treatment.) It was a totally lucky find.

I don't know the name of the pattern, but it's a P/Kaufmann fabric, and their fabrics are priced around $15-20+/yd. I got mine for $4/yd. Score one for thriftiness!

I thought about adding the length at the bottom, but the patterned fabric wouldn't have been visible behind the living room couch. I thought about adding the length at the top, but that would have meant getting rid of the grommets at the top of the panels, which I kind of wanted to keep.

And then I hit on a good compromise: cutting the panels in two and sandwiching the patterned fabric in between. I would get the pattern above eye level and still get to keep the grommets. I lined up the top of the patterned insert with the top of the window trim (more or less).

After lots of repetitive straight sewing and I had four custom curtain panels!

I had plans to add legnth to the cotton sheers as well, but when I pinned up the extra fabric, it looked really bad. Had to ditch that idea. I didn't even bother putting half of them back up. I'm going to replace them with longer versions of the same thing, hopefully.