Laura’s Dining Room Tour (Before + After!)

Wa-hooo !! It feels so good to tour a main room in our new home as it means it’s finally “done” and I can cross it off the list! There is definitely a different atmosphere in this room than when we moved in. It had darker burgundy walls, vertical blinds, carpets, posh moldings, and a shiny gold / wood ceiling fan – all things that really made this room feel like it was stuck in the room in the late ’80s / early’ 90s. We also noticed weird things like the molding was installed incorrectly (this type is supposed to be installed at an angle to cover the wall and ceiling, but they just glued it right to the wall so it looked really weird ). And there was an “arched” door into the room that was really more of a non-symmetrical square with rounded edges that kind of drove us crazy. There is a step down into this room so you get a slightly higher ceiling height (I think it was part of the porch at some point) and we wanted it to feel fresh and modern, with a fun ’70s twist. I’ll show you what we decided to do!

I moved back to my hometown to be close to my family, so it was very important to me to create a place for banquets. I love that this Seno oak table has two sheets that I can add on the ends so we can accommodate up to 12 people at a time (Elsie has the same thing!). We had my sister’s family with us for the first time this month, and I can’t tell you how happy it made me to pull out a sheet so we could all go together for a family spaghetti dinner with my parents and all our kids – me almost started crying!

We actually had these Svelti dining room chairs in our breakfast nook in our last home, and I loved them so much that I got six in pink for the dining room! They are comfortable, easy to care for and perfectly combine vintage vibes with a modern look.

It may seem crazy to have a white rug under a dining table in a home with a toddler, but it’s actually a strategic decision! With a white rug, you can spot clean spots like crazy (or even bleach them, depending on what the rug is made of) and it won’t look discolored from the rest of the rug like a colored rug. Have you ever cleaned a carpet so that this area now looks a lighter pink than the rest of the pink carpet? If it’s already white, it won’t happen, and so far red juices and spaghetti have spilled like it never happened (this is my all-time favorite stain remover!). My sister and Elsie are both doing the same thing!

I brought this IKEA hack bar cabinet from our last house, but I took off the leaf panels and added two rounded panels instead to make it blend in with the atmosphere a little better.

Also, I love good quote printing and found this shop on Etsy that will print your custom quote in a 70s font. So I made “I love you like Fanny loves Nick” as a reference to my favorite musical Funny girl … #Peoplewhoneedpeople

I brought this two story DIY acrylic planter from our last house and it looks really cute in the corner of the room. If I had enough of this, I’d probably put a hanging planter in every room – it’s a great way to add some greenery to a room.

I knew I wanted a large sideboard in this room so I could keep entertaining glasses and platters in a different location than my kitchen (space is very tight there!) And the Seno sideboard was perfect for the room there it also fits our table matches. I also have some puzzles and board games in a section of this as Lola also enjoys making puzzles on the table. I love the color of oak and it will also be perfect as an extra serving surface for parties. I like this vase collection that sits there (similar to this one) and I’ve wanted this gold cactus table lamp for years and I’m so happy with the way it feels in this room – it’s one of my favorite things in the house! And a pink velvet turntable to go with everything … yes please! We brought this living room chandelier and ceiling medallion from our last house because I didn’t want to leave it! It’s so pretty and I’m still a sucker for a nice globe light. We had to get a longer pole for this because these ceilings are much higher and they were hanging at the wrong height for the first nine months – haha!

And a huge pink Freddie Mercury print ?? Oh yeah!! I got a digital download and printed it here, but you can buy it as a print too.

You have probably already noticed this wavy wallpaper! It’s actually hand painted and I’ll share how I did it in a future post. Once you have your lines planned it is really easy to do and in my opinion it makes the room like 30 levels of fun. I basically do velvet curtains wherever I can in this house as I love them so much and these curtains are the same mustard colored curtains I have in Lola’s room – they add so much cozy luxury and I am obsessed (especially from this curtain.) rod)! I also added a yarn wall hanging for a cozier texture. I love this golden glass jug and the glass set (similar). I don’t have a rainbow collection, but I like colorful glassware here and there! You look so cute on this round tray (which is useful for so many things around the house!).

You can also see that we ended up angled and redesigned the door opening to match the other doors in the house (call my brother for helping out with this project!). I think arches can be really pretty and dramatic if done right, but this wasn’t really a full arch at first, wasn’t symmetrical, and just didn’t make sense as an arch point anyway, so like that. would have. to. walk. No regrets there!

Overall, I know this room is a little different from your traditional dining room, but it feels very fun and light-hearted to me, with a little ’70s nick and that’s exactly what I wanted. What do you think? Would you like to come to a dinner party in this room? xx. Laura

PS My comfy cute romper is from here!

Credits // Author and Photography: Laura Gummerman.