Cottage Farmhouse Dining Room Reveal
*This post is sponsored by Lamps Plus and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.*
Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I took a much needed break and I will be honest it has been hard getting back to the rhythm of things. There are a couple of posts that I am excited to share with you all and then going forward for the rest of the year I decided to figure out a better schedule for myself.
As of right now I will be doing one post and one video per week. I am hoping it will give me adequate time to get each video and coordinating blog post out at the same time (which is something I really want to do for this new year). This is not to say that there may be more than that per week on occasion, but there should always be a new one every Wednesday. ??
Okay back to our scheduled programming…. ??
One of the things I have been dying to tackle for a while now is our sad dining area. It’s actually comprised of 3 areas: the entrance, the dining room and the transition space from the dining room to our newly updated kitchen.
First off, the entrance is so sad. The door is outdated and the furniture in the area is a mismatch of items that we kept after we sized down to our new home. We sold a lot of things on FB Marketplace and only kept the essentials. This meant that not everything went together.
The large dark cabinet is an entertainment center and the blue cabinet is a really old makeover when I first started painting furniture…. I have come a long way folks . ?
The entertainment console (as you can see from this angle) also weighs everything down and blends into the dark floors giving no character at all to the wall behind it. And the lamps are outdated and just between you and me, the one on the right doesn’t work anymore. ?
The secretary you see on the corner will be a furniture flip I will share here soon. The fireplace is also outdated and will eventually be given a facelift… just not today!
In regards to the dining table, that is actually a new purchase off of Facebook marketplace. We sold our old dining table and purchased this one. I love how it’s so large and fits the room perfectly so that is definitely staying.
Finally, lighting has been a huge issue as well. We only have one large window in this space and it’s underneath a porch so not much light shines through. You can see below that there are areas more lit than others and I still have the ceiling fan base up after we took off the blades to remove the popcorn ceiling.
Yep! Full transparency here folks!?
You can also see how sad this transition wall to the new kitchen is. It had no character and looked extremely cluttered with all of the items we were keeping on top of my old coffee bar table (originally an IKEA hack).
So I am sure you can see how all of this was driving me crazy! Everything was disjointed and not coordinating at all.
I will say that one thing I do love about the space are the window casings that my hubby and I installed ourselves (more on that soon!). I am also grateful for our floors being done, the updated wall color and new baseboards that we replaced.
So in essence the place has good bones, but it just needs a furniture and decor overhaul.
So I got to work!
Initially I had wanted to turn the transition space into a pantry because I currently walk all the way down the hall, but I did several renderings and honestly, all of the options I liked were just too large and overpowering for the space. Plus, there was still the issue of the area being too dark.
So I nixed that.
Pantry shown above is a design from Ana White*
I decided that I wanted to make this a feature wall instead with lighting, shelving and a unit that would not only give me style but storage.
RELATED: How to Create a Mood Board Tutorial
Lamps Plus reached out to me during the time I was planning everything and wanted to be a part of the transformation so I checked out what their website had to offer. And let me tell you their selection was amazing!
Not only do they have lighting options for all areas of your home, in different styles and for different budgets, but they also had home decor accents and furniture pieces to transform any space in your home.
I went to Canva online in order to put together a rendering of the entire space to make sure that I coordinated everything for a seamless flow, but also to make sure that there was adequate lighting in the space with what they had to offer.
And this is what I came up with.
As always you can watch the transformation on my YouTube Channel as well.
Now while some of these pieces were not what I ended up going with in the end, this gives you an idea of what it will look like when everything came together.
The most complicated and time consuming part of the project was the transition wall. This included hardwiring sconces to our existing electrical and then stenciling the entire wall and adding shelves.
I chose this stencil and decided to give the wall a very light painting treatment. I didn’t want to overpower the space with too many things going on, but adding a stencil gave it a more high end and cozy feel.
Once the hardwiring was complete thanks to my awesome husband (don’t worry, he is professionally trained), it was time to add the actual sconces.
After that was complete we picked up these brackets and installed them on the wall with some wood pieces that I stained to match my existing plate rack in my kitchen wall.
Also, the screws that worked for this installation were silver, but I took some metallic black paint to camouflage them.
Once that was done, I added some drapes to the window at the front. The window (while it looked amazing with the new casing) was still lacking something and adding the drapes I used in my office at the last house worked perfectly for this.
Finally, I couldn’t leave my front door as is. It was outdated and dingy and I couldn’t wait to give it a facelift so I used Magnolia’s Wedding Band in a Semi-Gloss to give it a refresh. Perhaps someday in the future I can replace it, but for now, this will do.
Once the larger pieces arrived and we set them up, it was time for the accessories. Most of the accessories I used were from our last house, but they paired perfectly with the new pieces from Lamps Plus.
For example, this task lamp from Lamps Plus was perfect for the entrance. I paired it with this greige table and added items to the shelf on the bottom.
Plus, I love the fact that this table lamp is so unique and it has a base that allows you to plug in your phone or tablet to charge. So handy!
On the other side of the entrance I added this server that functions as 3 things: storage, another entrance table and a buffet when needed. Win-win-win!
Plus, look at how much those lamps light up the space. It doesn’t feel as dark anymore.
Again I used more of my old decor for the area and replacing my outdated lamps with these made a huge difference -plus they were more my style.
Replacing the chandelier was the only thing needed over by the actual dining table. But by just doing that it elevated the space so much and created such a focal point!
Now, over to what is possibly my favorite area of them all – the transition space. I LOVE how this came together exactly how I envisioned it. It doesn’t look like the same space anymore (as a matter of fact, it even looks larger!).
And not only does everything work perfectly to get that high end Cottage Farmhouse style, but the light this space now has is amazing.
The stencil gave it that personal touch, the shelves filled in the empty wall space, the storage console gave me storage and a surface to place things on and the sconces added so much life to this dreary space.
Look at how everything came together and brightened up the entire space!
JUST WOW! I am so in love! Do you have a favorite piece from the updated space? I would love to know below!
It’s definitely a huge change from before and the look of everything is elevated! The space looks more cohesive and sophisticated.
The best part about this is that there was no huge demo involved. By adding one pair of sconces, replacing the current light fixture above the dining table replacing the outdated lamps and adding one task lamp by the entrance, I resolved all of my lighting issues. In addition, by adding some key pieces of furniture with similar materials and styles the entire space was transformed.
Another great thing was that I was able to accessorize with things that I already had on hand allowing me to appreciate everything even more.
If you are looking at updating your space with either new lighting and/or furniture I would highly recommend Lamps Plus as they have such a large online selection with different styles and price points.
In addition, their items ship fast and their furniture pieces are packaged so well in order to protect them during delivery. We were really impressed with the care of packaging because in the past we have received items from other vendors that were damaged, split or broken so that definitely is important to us. Plus the quality of the actual product is hard to beat!
I look forward to seeing you all back here very soon!
