Before Shots, Moodboard, and Plans For Our Dining Room | ORC, Week 01
I am very excited to share that the Little Reesor House is participating as a guest in our very first One Room Challenge! I have been following other bloggers as they tackle this challenge for years (hello Boxwood Avenue, I love your dining room), but until we owned our home, it never crossed my mind to join in on the fun as a participant. I always love a good creative challenge, so I decided it would be fun to participate this fall and see what we can make happen in our blank canvas of a dining room.
If you are unfamiliar with the One Room Challenge, you can read more about it here. But essentially, each Spring and Fall, they run an event that offers the opportunity to participate alongside other home designers and enthusiasts to fully complete one single room in your home over the course of six (but in the case of the pandemic, eight) weeks. There are 20 featured designers (and their rooms are seriously good), but anyone is welcome to join in as a guest - which is exactly what I will be doing. I’ll share weekly updates on my progress in the room right here on our blog over the next eight weeks. I’ll even share the occasional video to go along with some of the projects I’ll be tackling. Are you up for following along?
For this challenge, I will be transforming our dining room. Let me tell you a little bit about our dining room as it exists at the beginning of this project.
The Before
This room is literally a blank slate. When we moved in a couple of years ago, we didn’t have any dining room furniture to fill it with. We have an eat-in kitchen, so setting up the dining space was never a priority. However, our kitchen is small with very limited counter space and storage, so we would love to be able to set up this dining space as our main eating area so we can remove the table in the kitchen to make better use of the floor plan. The dining room is also openly connected with our main living room, which means that we actually spend quite a bit of time in here. It finally feels like a good time to make better use of it and establish it as an extension of our main living space.
When we freshened up the paint in the living room last spring, I took the opportunity to carry it into the dining room too. The walls and trim are both freshly painted in the colour Falling Snow by Behr, with an eggshell finish on the walls and a semi-gloss finish on the trimwork. Other than that, not much else has been done in here. The previous owners took their heirloom chandelier with them when they moved and replaced the light with a very basic builder-grade fixture. The floors are a glossy orange-toned hardwood that I can’t say I am very fond of, but they will be staying for now. We hope to replace the floors on the entire first storey of our home within the next couple of years, so until then, we will make do with what we have. There is one window in this space along the back wall and it just so happens to be surrounded by an interesting bulkhead and column combination. That will also be staying, but I think there is a way that we can work with it instead of trying to hide it. As for the furniture? This open space has become a dumping ground for all the furniture that was replaced in other areas of our home, so most of what’s here will either be sold, donated, or relocated somewhere else in our home. We will pretty well be starting fresh.
The Dining Room Function
I definitely love a beautiful space, but I think it’s easy to prioritize form over function. I always say that nothing in our house should be too precious to actually live in it, so I want to be really mindful of how we want this space to function for us right now. Which is basically my way of saying that we are in the small-kid phase of life and that’s important to consider. I have a few goals for this space that I have kept in the front of my mind as I made the action plan.
I want this space to exude comfort, warmth, and invitation. There is no such thing as a formal dining room in our home. This is going to be our primary dining space and connected with our living room, so I want it to feel just as comfortable to be doing a puzzle at the table as it is to be watching football on the television. The comfort factor is huge - literally and figuratively.
I want to create a space that can host a handful of people. Seating is going to be key, as I want this space to be cozy when it’s just our family having dinner yet open enough to accommodate guests when we can. This is going to be our only dining space.
I want to do this on a reasonable budget. I would love to be able to just buy my dream dining room furniture and go all out on this space, but having a firm budget is something that is really important to us. I think it adds to the challenge to think creatively about how and where to spend our money. But with that being said, being budget conscious does not mean that I am doing this on a really small budget. We value what this space will bring to our home and our family so we are willing to put some money into it. I just mean that we want to be intentional about where we spend and where we save and take the opportunity to use DIY projects to create a space we really love.
The Dining Room Design
Cozy, layered, light, and welcoming are just a few of the themes that have been guiding my plans as I piece together the different elements for this room. The walls will be staying white, but I would love to bring in some additional tones in other design elements. The biggest change I would like to make in this space is by adding a big, cozy built-in bench with hidden storage inside. Not only will this be a great opportunity to layer in comfy textiles and offer ample seating options, but it will also serve a very functional purpose and free up some of the valuable storage space in our tiny kitchen. I’d love to make the bench a focal point in the space and use it to really reinforce the feeling of coziness and comfort by visually carrying it up the wall with some beadboard and/or trim work.
In terms of colour, I will keep the room fairly neutral with pops of warm olive green and black. I’d love to add a glass storage cabinet to hold all our bar supplies and pretty servingware and think the cabinet would be the perfect opportunity to add a punch of the warm green highlight colour. I want the light fixture to be big and bold with a lot of style - to me, nothing contributes to the coziness of a space more than good lighting. I want it to be stylish by day and warm and moody by night.
Finally, I want to bring in a warm wood dining table. Something with character and charm that can accommodate a good handful of bodies. I think if it has rounded edges or some sort of curves it would feel more welcoming, especially in such a tight space. I plan to keep the remaining seating fairly simple. Just a handful of simple black Windsor-style chairs with comfy seat cushions. Art and pretty textiles will hopefully pull it all together and make it feel personal and stylish.
The Dining Room To-Do List
I’m so excited for the direction of this space, but it’s definitely going to take some work to get us there. I broke the transformation down into five main projects that I’ll have to tackle over the course of these next eight weeks:
01 // Built-In Storage Bench
This is by far the most ambitious DIY in the project plan, but I figure that if I can build myself a stone fireplace, I can probably figure this one out too. I’ll likely frame the bench out with 2x4’s, cover it with smooth, high-quality plywood, and then paint it out in a pretty neutral tone. Of course I want this bench to have hidden storage, so I’ll have to figure out a way to make the interior area accessible. I have yet to really narrow down the plans, but this will be the part I will be tackling first and foremost so I give myself plenty of time to figure it out. What I do know is that I intend to nestle the built-in bench along the back bulk-head wall and want to add beadboard and trim part way up the wall to truly make this little space a special moment.
02 // Refinish a Dining Table
I found a perfect dining table for our dining room on our local buy-and-sell, but it’s not quite the wood tone I am going for in this space. I’m going to attempt to strip it down and refinish it in my preferred tone instead. I’ve never actually stripped furniture, though, so if all else fails, I’ll just paint it.
03 // Glass Cabinet Flip
This project feels the most approachable and familiar to me. I found a great china cabinet on our local buy-and-sell and plan to use the glass top portion as the glass cabinet of my dreams. It will require building a base to prop it up off the floor and painting it to my heart’s content, but I’m confident it can be exactly what I dream it to be with a little TLC and time.
04 // DIY Roman Shade
With the built-in along the window wall, I don’t think it would make sense to have curtains hanging down. We definitely want some privacy for this window, so I think I will tackle trying to create my own roman shade instead. I’m not the most confident sewer, but I think I’ll be able to handle this relatively simple project.
05 // Furnishings
The most fun and exciting part - the icing on the cake! I’ve been sourcing products for weeks now and preparing to have all the pieces of the puzzle in place by the time the project wraps. It’s tricky with delayed shipping times and items going out of stock in an instant, but I’m sure that when all is said and done, it will all work out exactly as it is meant to be. I have been purchasing some new items for this room, but I’m definitely planning to use some items I already have and hope to do some thrifting and thrift flips to fill in the gaps. I love the collected look and thrifting is truly the most authentic way to achieve that.
I think that’s all there is to share today. Take one last look, because hopefully by the end of the challenge this room will feel completely different. I’m really excited to see this transformation unfold over the next eight weeks. I have been intentionally planning it out for a couple of months now, but it’s been over two years in the making to finally get to this point of trying to tackle this room. That’s the exciting and beautiful part of taking on your own home projects - you do so much growing and learning as your space evolves and comes to life. I can’t wait to get started this weekend!
If you, like me, love being inspired by what other people are doing, be sure to check out what some of the other guest participants of the ORC are up to this fall too. There will be no shortage of beautiful and inspiring home interiors!
