Mini Dining Room Makeover Before

We are still mid-kitchen remodel (thanks to 2020–update coming soon). But since the kitchen is now open to the dining room and it’s pretty much one space, we wanted to fix it up a little too.

$100 Room Challenge time is MY FAVORITE time to do that. Because, it clearly only costs $100 and it’s so much fun to see what you can do with just that much money.

So here are the “Befores!”

Not long after moving in, I broke the mini blinds that were on the window when I tried to close them…apparently too enthusiastically. And the temporary curtain we put up is STILL there.

You can see we have a couple cabinets hanging out in the room. Those will be going into the soon-to-be butler’s pantry.

We have an art deco mantle just hanging out mid-wall. And art deco/craftsman ceiling light and sconces.

The sconces are tricky. I love sconces in a dining room, but it’s way overkill with overhead lights there as well. Plus they are way too high up the wall. So I’d like to remove one set, either the overhead or the sconces. This is a tough one for me!

And teal walls.

The color is actually nice. But I just don’t personally do teal walls, just not “our thing”. You can see the black and gray I’ve been testing.

My wish list is huge for the room. Not expensive stuff, just big projects, so I doubt we’ll be able to get to them all, but hopefully at least a few for this challenge:

• Repair the black and white rug that’s supposed to be in this room, and swap the tan one out for it
• Paint the walls
• Paint the trim
• Remove mantle
• Build new mantle that actually surrounds stove (still art deco style)
• Replace light fixture(s)
• Custom doggy gate at the front door
• Complete curtain and blinds set on the window, hung properly
• Custom radiator cover to replace metal one (under the window)
• New bar stools for island (honestly probably won’t happen this month–and definitely not within the $100 budget)

Here’s a sample of my Pinterest inspiration board for the room (a soft black/charcoal and white, as usual for me):

The $100 Room Challenge is a challenge that anyone can join, just makeover a room for $100 and share your progress on your blog. Everyone that joins can link their posts together so we can all hop from blog to blog getting really fun inspiration (and be amazed at what you can accomplish with $100).

Here are the rest of the participants for this challenge: