This one has been a work in progress for awhile.  Slowly but surely, I’ve changed a few things about our dining room:

dining-room-makeover-2Inspired by some dining rooms on Pinterest where the table is pushed against the wall with bench seating on one side I finally made the first move. Also on my list – dealing with too much furniture in there and nothing on the walls.

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I moved the dresser out, and pushed the table closer to the wall.  Then I took two stools from the living room and pushed them together to make a bench.  Comfortable and even better – FREE!!  I had some unused pillows that I bought covers for (Ikea) for the ‘back’ of the bench.

The most dramatic transformation however, was the framed photographs I hung on the wall.  I bought the frames from Ikea to keep it affordable and you may recognize the pictures from this post.

dining-room-makeover-4So much better!  I was pretty happy.  I just knew I wanted to change out the curtains but wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted yet.  So I waited.  As time went by I started to question my furniture and knick knack placement but I figured that somehow the curtains would fix everything.

dining-room-makeover-6Well the curtains did fix everything but not in the way that I expected.  I found them on Craigslist for $30 for the pair (what a bit of patience will do for you!) and loved them the moment I hung them.

But something was off.  Suddenly all of the ‘stuff’ on my shelves were sticking out like a sore thumb.  I stared and stared and stared and finally just started taking stuff away. Before I knew it, I had removed both shelves with all of their content and I was in love with the result. It’s fresh, it’s bright and it’s BIGGER!

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Here you can see the difference side by side:

dining-room-makeover-1Now the photos are truly the ‘stand out pieces’ in the room as they were intended to be.

dining-room-makeover-8Who knew that a $30 pair of curtains would inspire me to ditch half of my dining room?  The reality is, the shelves served only as dust collectors and to raise my level of anxiety every time Luke went over and started playing with stuff.

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Now they serve a more functional purpose elsewhere in my house. More importantly – I LOVE my dining room!

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So whether you need to get rid of something or find that perfect addition, what’s holding you back?