Dining Room Update

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The dining room was located at the back of the house. This was also where we wanted to put the new kitchen, once we saved up a bit of money. It had a huge window that overlooked the pool area and the back part of the property with the red barn, huge lawn, and trees.

Updating the Space

First, we removed the small built-in desk, to create some more space next to the back door. I kept the shelves above it since they were narrow enough to be out of the way and a useful spot for keys and some knickknacks. The parquet floor was installed over older vinyl flooring, and I found just enough leftover pieces in the pantry, to fill the gap left by the desk. Pieter helped to get them glued in place. We removed the two pieces of baseboard and replaced them with a single new piece instead. All that was now left to do, was to paint the walls.

Paint made such a huge difference here too. I painted the walls grey, and both doors white. I also painted the ceiling white, to cover some older water stains. Once all was completed, your eye went to the two beautiful built-in corner display units and the large window, instead of the ugly walls and dark doors.

Furniture

We had to place our huge dining room table at an angle in this room so we could get to the back door and pantry easily. A smaller round table would have been a perfect fit for this room, but since this table was a furniture piece we moved here from South Africa, we had to make it work.

The Pantry

A little hidden and very useful surprise, was a small room off of the dining room, with floor to ceiling shelves.

I added shelf liners throughout and organized my pantry with finds from the local Dollar Tree. I chose red as an accent and used a bunch of plastic bins and baskets for all my smaller pantry items. For additional storage, I reused some cardboard boxes that were the perfect size for my shelves. I covered these with a fun patterned gift paper (also picked up at Dollar Tree). I applied chalk labels to all bins and boxes, and once everything was labelled, my family members could quickly find what they were looking for without involving me. It’s the small victories that count, right?

The pantry also had an ugly old orange vinyl floor, which I covered with more modern looking peel and stick vinyl tiles. It was a really good match with the parquet floor in the rest of the area and so easy to install. You can cut them to size with a utility knife. The best part is finding them online and having them delivered right to your door. I prefer the Achim brand from Amazon. There are 10x planks per box and it will cover 15 square feet.