Dining room makeover

For a long time I have wanted to have some more storage in my extra dining room off of my kitchen. We have had quotes to have new cabinets and a desk area put in but just couldn't bring ourselves to spend the $4,000. So after a couple years of staring at this wasted space Dan decided to get a wild hair and do it all himself. Here they are drawing up the plans. Kai and Calvin love to work along side of Daddy.

Here are the before pictures of how the room has looked for the past year. It has become quite the mess of crafting junk.

These are pictures during the 2 week process. Dan built all the cabinet frames and then installed doors that he found from a pile of rejects at a cabinet company. He found beautiful knotty alder doors for only $4/each! He also added some beautiful crown moulding to the top. Then when everything was put together he painted them robin egg blue with a distressed finish. We got a precut piece of laminate counter top from home depot for way cheaper than having a custom one cut (I think it was around $90) then Dan cut it to fit our space.


Here is the finished product! I absolutely LOVE it! Thanks Dan for making me my own little sanctuary. I have a second pantry and plenty of space for all of my crafting supplies.

Directly across from the cabinets I made a little sitting area. I found these great vintage chairs off craigslist for only $40/each! The dresser is a $10 garage sale find from 4 years ago. We painted the drawers black and used it in the boys' room when they were babies. I changed the knobs to match the new sitting area and now it has a new home. I store fabric scraps and scrap paper for the boys in the drawers. The curtains I made for our sliding glass back door when we first moved into this house. Then I move them to the big front window and now they are on the side smaller window. I almost got rid of them and started over because they had green on them and I am getting rid of everything green. I decided to make them work. Luckily the green fabric was on the ends, so I cut it off and hemmed the edges. Then I was fortunate enough to find some blue trim to match the cabinet paint perfectly! I sewed on one strip of trim to each panel and I feel like I have brand new custom curtains and it only took $25 worth of fancy trim!


This is where all the magic happens! Two of my favorite things is the antique napkin holder that I use as a paper holder ($2 at a neighborhood garage sale) and the antique milk glass lamp ($4 garage sale find)

One little splurge is this tall hobnail milkglass lamp that I ordered off ebay ($22+shipping, not too bad in my mind and I already had the shade) and the ornate beveled mirror might be one of my favorite finds of all time. I got it from an auction in Mesa about 5 years ago (I won it for only $4) and haven't had a place to put it until now. I think it is happy to finally have a home.