One of my favorite things about our dining room is how it has changed over time. It's not formal or stuffy, and that's perfect because neither are we.
Since we bought our house, I've learned that decorating is a process. As nice as it would be to snap my fingers and have a whole room finished, the reality is that sometimes it takes a while before a room is complete, if it ever really is.
The first thing we did to the dining room was replace the builder's-grade, brass "chandelier" that came with the house. I have pictures of just about everything from the building process, but we changed that light fixture so quickly that even I didn't have time to take a picture of it.
In its former life, the dining room had tan carpet, a square bistro table, and zero window treatments. We had the flooring replaced almost immediately (reusing the carpeting elsewhere in our house and giving some to family), but over time we realized the bistro table just wasn't our style.
Naturally, the only table sets we liked cost thousands of dollars. No thank you. So we decided to build one ourselves.
We found a few plans on Ana-White's website, and combined them to make our own, custom dining room table and benches. (We didn't have a Kreg Jig to make pocket holes, so we improvised by recessing the screws with bits we bought at the hardware store.)
We used 4x4 lumber for the legs, and cut a ledge into the inside corner of each leg. We built the frame to support the top pieces, and rested the frame on the ledges.
Tip: When choosing lumbar for your projects, check for pieces that have little or no curve to them. Don't be afraid to be picky. The time you spend getting quality lumber in the beginning will save you frustration during the building process (frustration + power tools is a bad combination).
After measuring twice and cutting once (or twice), it was time to assemble the furniture.
Once assembled, we sanded the table and benches to prep them for staining. We stained everything but the top of the table. For the tabletop, we painted it an off-white color, sanded it, and went over the paint with the same stain we used on the legs and benches.
At first, we left the benches dark, but eventually we decided they were too dark for the room, so we went over each of the benches with the same off-white paint as the tabletop and gave them a decent sanding so some of the stain showed through.
We replaced the original panels on the wall with a three-panel room divider that we bought at a store and separated into three pieces.
More than a year after building our table and benches, we found a wine cabinet that matched them perfectly. As of now, our dining room looks like it does in the picture below. But, as with everything in our house, (including us), the room continues to evolve. Stay tuned for more changes to this and other rooms in our home as the evolution continues.
