dining room makeover progress

 hi guys, as promised a little update on the dining room makeover since my last post. with the help of my sister (thanks again Kelly!) the walls are done and the dresser table top and fireplace surround. i chose farrow and ball's james white in eggshell for these. i know that farrow and ball paint is not normally the 'budget choice for paint' (i know what you are thinking 'this is a budget decorating blog?') but the reason i chose it was because it was only for the furniture and it does go a very long way. also it hardly drips and created a really professional finish. i only needed two coats and each coat dried in about 5 minutes which helped speed up the whole process. it cost £17 per small can (a litre per can - i think) so £34 in total and for the massively improved look of the dated early 90's furniture - it was money really well spent.

to paint the dresser we took off the hardware - ie. brass knobs and door hinges and took out all of the door glass and the glass shelving. in hindsight i wish i had left the doors on to paint them as they were very fiddly to paint while on the floor as i had to wait for each surface to dry before proceeding to the next part. i had to paint all on the inside of the top section of the dresser as it is all exposed due to the mirrors, lighting and see through doors and had to be careful with the paint. this was probably the fiddliest part of all. for the bottom all i did was paint the inside of the doors. i didn't bother painting the shelving inside as it won't be visible and i had to be sparing with the paint!

once dried i used some varnish/paint remover from b&q on a piece of cotton wool to remove the excess paint on the mirrors at the back.

then i replaced the knobs and shelves and attached the doors. our friends were so surprised when they saw the dresser - they couldn't believe that my Mum (who gave me all the dining room furniture) got it along with the matching extendable table and chairs at a charity furniture shop all for about £100!

you may be wondering why i didn't paint the chairs too. well, we did paint two chairs but my husband felt that it would maybe be a bit too much white so we opted for the contrasting look and kept four of the chairs in their original mahogany-esque style and the other two painted chairs can be for extras as and when required. also i decided not to paint the table legs for two reason, again for the contrast and also as i was running low on paint!

 there is still a lot to do but i decided to add just a couple of decorative features as we had friends to visit on the saturday following all of the painting so wanted it to look at least a little bit presentable. so i put my vintage sewing machine back in her corner and plonked the candelabra on her and thought it looked quite good so kept it there. then i just added a couple of spritzer bottles and a vintage shoe form (all found or given to me from charity shops/car boot) on the mantelpiece along with some glass tea light holders and a cute picture of my stepson.  

so, now for the next 'to do' list

• remove the awful blue carpet
• paint the skirting boards
• fit the new carpet (i have sourced a natural coir carpet at around £12 a sq meter)
• recover the upholstery on the dining room chairs
• find or make some nice cushions for the chairs
• get a nice rustic mirror for above the mantelpiece and lots of frames and pictures for the walls (this will definitely be a work in progress task)
• fit the chandelier
• work out what to do about disguising the clashing marble surround and gas fire - maybe i'll find a large fire screen to cover it - any ideas on this dilemma are greatly appreciated!
• fit some nice curtains - colours not yet decided - again any ideas are most welcome

i think it will be another few months till its completed but i feel like i am getting there now. the next stage is to add some warmth and colour to the room by way of the carpet, fabrics and pictures. mainly the pictures as i can change those as and when the mood suits me. and the cushions i will be adding to the chairs (on top of the new upholstery) will be easy to change too, which is good as i am thinking of hot pinks, oranges and purples for my first set of cushions!

R x