Dining Room Makeover.

Today’s post comes from 4men1lady’s contributor Kimberly Dekker of Days Of Dawn.  She recently did a makeover on her apartment dining room.  It’s amazing how a few small and inexpensive changes add up to a dramatic space.  Take it away Kimberly!

There are many ups and downs to apartment living. One of the “not-so-fun” parts of renting an apartment is not having many options to upgrade a space, such as our tiny little breakfast nook. While expanding the room or changing out the cheap (and ugly) linoleum floors might not be options, I finally decided to do what I could with the space and give it a “face lift” after an entire year of living with it as it was. I have never felt inspired by the space, nor have I found the time to freshen it up until now. I also didn’t have a very big budget for the project, so I had to be as frugal as possible, to include a couple DIY projects along the way!

I have been wanting to re-cover my dining table chairs for years! Since they weren’t terrible to begin with, I never made time for them and always assumed the project would be a LOT harder than it was. With the help of a screwdriver, scissors, and a staple gun I easily replaced the worn and bland fabric with this fun and durable striped fabric! I think it brings a lot of life to the room and compliments the bold rug nicely!

Now let’s talk about the “elephant in the room” or should I say, the light fixture that was in there before! It felt very outdated and dark, and I couldn’t wait to replace it! When I began shopping for a new fixture, I really loved pendant lighting. I felt like since the space was so small, it needed something minimal and less bulky. I am especially drawn to drum shades, but pretty much every one I found that I liked was more than I was willing to spend. I decided to do it myself!

I purchased a mini pendant light kit and a drum shade for a table lamp on clearance. It was plain white, and I knew I wanted to add some color and pattern to it, so I decided to cover it with fabric! I chose a pretty lace fabric (also plain white) and decided to spray paint the lace to get the pop of color I wanted! After it dried, I used some craft paper to cut a pattern of the drum shade, so the lace would be cut-to-size. Then, with a little fabric glue, just attached the lace to the inner rim of the shade and VOILA! A brand new light fixture for less than $30.

 

 

Since I am not very “handy” and am no electrician, I am very blessed with a husband that not only knows his way around a breaker box, but was willing to spend the time to hook up to the new light kit and remove the old one.

Although the room is still small, I feel like with just a few simple changes, it feels so much bigger, brighter and a lot more inviting!

Fab makeover Kimberly! I’m LOVING the new lamp shade chandelier!  To see more of Kimberly’s projects check out her blog at Days of Dawn.