I'm about to share with you how we brightened our dining room and made it look like a completely different room for only $68 (including a new piece of furniture!). But first, here's what our dining room looked like last year, before we made any of our recent changes.
We bought the dining room table set from Walmart, and it's served us well! The curtains are from Target, and the gray wall color is Vessel Gray by Valspar. Those are the elements here that have stayed... though not exactly stayed the same!
I've read that whenever there is black furniture in a room, it makes the room appear smaller, and I completely agree--though I'd extend that to all dark furniture! I'd walk into the dining room and just think how dark and small it looked, all the time! Finally I decided that our dining room needed a change. Even though our budget was teeny tiny, I was determined to do a mini-makeover!
A couple weeks ago, I heard the weather was going to be nice for a few days, so I purchased a bunch of white spray paint (around $40), pulled all the chairs onto the porch, and started working. Originally I was thinking of writing an entire post on the paint I used, and some tips I had, but honestly... even after spray-painting eight chairs, I don't feel like an expert. I thought that spray-painting would be easy and fast, and though it was easier and faster than brush-painting these chairs (which would've been awful), it definitely still took hours and hours of work and patience.
While the chairs were outside drying, I used Valspar bonding primer and then Ultra White Satin (both of which we had on hand) to paint the table legs, and I rolled the top with Polished Silver. I love the contrast between the light gray and the white!
I mentioned that we had a new piece of furniture for the dining room as well! My sister-in-law bought this sturdy desk for me from Goodwill for $20! I had been looking for a piece just like this! I used Polar Star by Valspar (a very light gray), and rolled as much of it as I could to give it a smooth appearance. Then I spray-painted the handles with Rustoleum oil-rubbed bronze! This whole piece turned out great!
Once I finished painting all the furniture, I just needed a little decor! I didn't want to spend much money, so I headed to A.C. Moore, and found a few flowers, a vase, and a candle for $7!
As for the frame, we already had it, but I wanted to add a chalkboard inside of it! I just traced the inside of the frame with a pencil, and then took the frame down, and quickly rolled on the chalkboard paint. Even with two coats, the whole process still took me less than 15 minutes.
The boxwood wreath was a gift from my sister. She actually DIY-d it, using a grapevine wreath she already had, plus part of a boxwood garland and some hot glue. The whole project only cost her $4!
Our dining room is so much brighter now. Besides the spray-paint, all the paint we used we already had, so it was free! Our table and chairs got a complete makeover, plus we added decor and a new piece of furniture, and spent less than $70! This is definitely something any of you could do! We were so pleased with the final result--both aesthetically and financially!
