My Christmas Wish
It is a new year!! Hello, 2017! When reflecting, I cannot believe how much we have accomplished in 2016, and finishing our dining room renovation on a budget was the last thing we checked off our list before the year ended! I told my husband, that all I wanted for Christmas was to have one, completely finished, room in our house! We have come a long way from when we first bought our home 2 years ago, and although we have done many renovations, a bunch of projects, and a ton of updates, we did not have one room I could say was finished! Well, I am happy to say we pulled it off, and we have a completely finished dining room in our home! So please enjoy the before and after pictures, and read on to see what we did for our dining room renovation on a budget!
Before We Started
So here are the before pictures of when we moved in and we refinished the floors, moved in our furniture, and it has stayed that way up until about 2 months ago when we started the renovation. In one picture you can see a peek of that awful yellow paint previously in the hallway, eeeek, so glad that is gone now!
When we decided to do the dining room, the deciding factor was that the holidays were coming up and to have Christmas dinner in a finished room would be lovely, and also the fact that it was the most beat up room in our house. There was one wall that was completely termite eaten, it was repaired but not painted, and the room has also sunken a little over 160 years, so lots of cracks and holes in the walls weren’t that pretty to look at while sitting down for dinner. The paint in the room needed a major update, as well as the yellowed white paint on the 2 built-ins. The previous chandelier in the pictures you see we found in the attic with an antique store tag on it, so it was not original to the house, but we put it up anyway since we didn’t have one we liked yet. Lastly, all the outlets in the room needed to be updated, and floor molding needed to be added too. So after repairing, updating, and painting, our room has transformed, and here is the reveal!
Dining Room Renovation Reveal!
How We Kept Under Our Budget
The new chandelier is my absolute favorite! And if you follow me on social media you know I put that baby together, hung it, and did the electrical, all by myself! You can see my contraption I set up to get it to the ceiling, lol, sketchy for sure, but it worked! Proud moment! The chandelier we actually got for a very good price on black friday from gallery67.com, and it is stunning, you can check out the same one on amazon here…
After repairing all the plaster and closing up all the cracks and holes, we painted the room the same taupe color paint we used in the hallway, if you would like to check out that before and after, click here. The color is by Valspar, in the historic color, Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe. The picture, crown, chair, and floor molding, we have painted in Valspar Dove White. We added the same wallpaper up in the picture molding, that we previously did in the hallway as well, and I LOVE IT! This same product you can check out here…I love adding this to the picture molding because it is embossed, so it looks like real molding, but for a much more budget-friendly price than real molding! Here are the walls and all the cracks we had to deal with, now we have smooth walls!
I had refinished a french provincial dresser that was supposed to be for sale, but I just fell in love with it and couldn’t bare to sell it, and now it looks perfect in the dining room and was definitely a budget piece! I think we purchased it for $50, spent some time making her beautiful again, and now it looks expensive! The things chalk paint can do! If you want to learn how I chalk paint my pieces, check out my blog post, Repainting Furniture with Chalk Paint. You could easily apply this same concept to a dining table, I see tons of craigslist tables for sale every day for $100 or $200 and with a little paint and love, they would be spectacular!
One major update our home needs in floor molding, which is expensive to pay a professional to do! So my husband asked for a nail gun for Christmas, and he did the floor molding in the dining room in literally 2o minutes! He did such an amazing job, and saved us a ton of $ on our dining room renovation budget! Here he is hard at work!
Changing out outlets is such an easy and cheap update to do in any room, although electrical can sound scary, it really isn’t when it comes to basic things like outlets. Just make sure the power is off, and have an electrical detector pen, like this one here, that can read if the current is off or not for safety before touching anything, and you will be safe. My husband learned how to do electrical on youtube, and now over the years he has changed out dozens of outlets and light fixtures in our homes, that once upon a time we would have paid someone to do. Big money saver by learning something very simple!
Now that it’s Finished
So that is how we did our dining room renovation on a budget. We spent less than $500 including the tools and the chandelier, but it looks like we spent thousands in my opinion. We are so happy with how it turned out, and we finished it 2 days before Christmas! Our first meal in the finished dining room was Christmas eve dinner with my sister and her boyfriend we got to meet for the first time. It was perfect! We had an amazing year for 2016, and a very merry Christmas with my sister and her bf! If you haven’t checked out our Christmas Decor Roundup for 2016 yet, go check it out here!
We wish y’all a Happy New Year!
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JoAnn says
You never cease to amaze me! What ah outstanding renovation!
It’s worthy of being in one of those southern magazines!
It’s beautiful! Awesome Job you two!
candy says
I love old houses and the look and feel they bring. Knew those floors would turn out beautiful. The room turned out beautiful.
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you Candy that is very kind! The floors are heart of pine, and original to the home, so we were so happy we could save and refinish them!
Kim says
I am in awe! It’s gorgeous!! I am inspired to redo mine now!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Aww thank you Kim! If you need any tips when you do yours let me know!
Elizabeth - CrazyBusyHappyLife says
WOW! What a difference. It doesn’t hurt that your working with good “bones” but that’s still an impressive renovation. Kudos for smoothing those walls. That’s something I’m dreading doing.
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you Elizabeth! Yes the walls were our least favorite part for sure, but since they are plaster not drywall, we would get away with leaving a few imperfections!
Rebecca Hicks says
Wow I love it! It really does look like you spent thousands… I can’t believe you did all that for $500. DIY really does pay off, doesn’t it?!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
It sure does! We cannot believe how much we have learned doing DIY, and we started off not knowing anything! thank you Rebecca for your kind words!
Becki Svare says
What a beautiful room! I love that you have a fireplace in your dining room!! Well Done!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you so much Becki! Its not a working fireplace but we are going to add gas gel can logs eventually!
Jen Smith says
IT’s beautiful! Very appropriate for the design of the house. My husband and I can’t wait to buy a fixer upper, this makes it even harder to wait! Congrats!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you Jen! Were trying to keep the design as much to the era of the house as possible! I hope yall get a fixer upper! Its alot of work but thats half the fun!
Kate says
This is absolutely stunning, nice work! I love the style of your home, looks like you had a good canvas to work with once it was all cleaned up
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Aww thank you Kate!
Sheila Schweiger-Rhodes says
You did an incredible job! Can I make a suggestion to make your type on your blog larger? I wanted to read every last word, but it was difficult. The dining room is gorgeous and it really does look like it costs thousands and the chandelier is STUNNING! It is a great thing to see an old house come to life again! Many Blessings to you!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Hi Sheila! Thank you I will enlarge my font today, I have a large computer screen so I didn’t realize how small it was! And thank you for your kind words!
Francesca says
You did an amazing job!! I’m in love with those built in shelves!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you Francesca!
jehava says
It looks really great! Thanks for sharing we want to do this soon as well!
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you Jehava! Let me know if you need any tips when you start yours!
Crystal says
It’s so beautiful. I love the dark floors.
Jenna Panehal-Pelayo says
Thank you so much Crystal! We took a long time picking the stain we wanted!