Transitional Dining Room Makeover: Furniture & Design Sources

Well, friends, the day is finally here to show you our finished dining room! We’ve been working on this room renovation for 11 months and I, for one, am SO glad that we’re finally done!

We still have a few more tutorials to share with you, but I couldn’t hold back any longer from sharing the dining spacing. 

This transitional dining room reveal contains affiliate links, but nothing that I wouldn’t recommend wholeheartedly. Read my full disclosure here.

Before Photos

Let’s start with the before pictures! Now if you remember back with me, this room was originally our home office. A few years ago we completely redid the whole room and set up this pretty his and her office space, which worked great….until we started homeschooling. 

At that point, we gave the room a mini-makeover to turn it into a shared office and homeschool room – getting rid of one of the desks in the process. We used a small dining table in place of a desk to do our schoolwork. Again, that worked great as well. 

Until one weekend in the middle of January when we were stuck inside in the middle of an ice storm and we got bored. You may remember the story, which I shared here. 

Our plan was just to replace the flooring in the homeschool room, which seemed like a good idea. Rip out the old carpet and put in the laminate flooring that we’ve had stacked up in the hallway for over a year. It was a great way to take advantage of the downtime…right? 

Lo and behold, the flooring project slowly morphed into an entire room renovation which involved ripping out two load-bearing walls to create an open concept from our living room to our kitchen with a dining area in the middle.

We spent the next 11 months demoing, rebuilding, painting, tiling, decorating, and more.

DIY Projects in the Dining Room Makeover

As always, there were so many DIY projects that went into the dining room makeover and we love sharing those detailed step-by-step tutorials with you. Here are some of the things we completed in the dining space along with the links to the DIY tutorial. 

Note: There are some projects which we are still working on writing the DIY tutorial for, so we’ll add those links as soon as they are available. 

Taking Down the Walls To Create Open Concept

The first thing we did for our dining room makeover was knock out both walls separating the room from the kitchen and living room. It was a huge mess, but WOWZERS did it make a huge difference!

See the whole process of taking down the walls to create an open concept! 

Removing Old Stairs and Building New Stairs To Dining Room

We hammered out our old concrete living room stairs to build new stairs to combine our new living and dining rooms. The old garage slab had to be demoed and leveled out with new concrete. We also got to learn all the ways you shouldn’t cut stringers. 

Check out everything we learned about building stairs in this video!

Redoing the Electrical Wiring

We had to redo most of the electrical wiring in the room, moving outlets and light switches. We also added a 3-way and 4-way switch. 

Check out the installation process for running new electrical wiring in this video!

Installing and Texturing Drywall

After we fixed the electrical, we needed to reinstall drywall and texture it throughout the room. In the YouTube video linked below, we share DIY tips and tricks for installing and how to mud and tape the drywall sheets and demonstrate drywall finishing with a skip trowel texture.

Follow along as we show you the process of hanging and texturing drywall in our dining room renovation. 

Adding Dining Room Built-In Cabinets

For the wall where the pegboard was in the former home office, we added a full wall of built-in cabinets with base cabinets topped with a faux marble countertop along with upper cabinets and floating shelves over a full wall of tile. 

Learn how to use inexpensive stock cabinetry to create your own built-in cabinets in this tutorial!

Creating Arched Opening in Reading Nook

The former home office was technically a bedroom, so it had a closet. When we converted the room into a dining room, we transformed the old closet into a reading nook.

To add some architectural interest to the nook, we added an arched doorway to the top, which fits right in with the transitional design. It transformed the entire space!

Learn how to create your own arched doorway in this step-by-step guide!

Building Floating Bookshelves for Reading Nook

You can’t have a reading nook without book storage. On each side of the old closet, we added floating wood shelves to hold all the books.

Learn how to make your own floating bookshelves in this tutorial!

Check out all of our other tips and tricks for creating your own reading nook from an old closet!

Installing Laminate Flooring

We had already added the laminate flooring to our living room to match the existing flooring from the kitchen (which was installed before we moved into this house). We simply carried the same flooring so it is consistent through all three rooms that now connect. 

Walk through the entire process of how to install laminate flooring!

Painting The Walls Sage Green

Green is a color that flows through our entire home’s color scheme, so it made sense to add it to the dining room in a big way.

We added this gorgeous Sage Green color called Incognito by BEHR Paint to the walls in the dining room. It is a great complement to the two shades of gray in the adjoining rooms (this color is in the kitchen and this color is in the living room).

Tiling the Wall Above The Cabinets

We used a tile adhesive mat on the wall above the cabinets and brought a simple gray subway tile up the entire wall. It’s a great backdrop for the built-in cabinets (which also function as a buffet table in this dining room). 

Tile backsplash tutorial coming soon!

Installing Floating Shelves Above The Cabinets

To break up the cabinetry a bit, we opted to only add upper cabinets in the corners and fill the gap in between with these gorgeous floating shelves.

Adding Bar Under Cabinets

I’ve always dreamed of having a rail under kitchen cabinets. We were able to mimic the look of a kitchen rail by installing towel bars underneath the upper cabinets and the floating shelf in the dining room.

It’s a great place to decorate and add some of those classic traditional pieces, like hanging baskets and antique paintings. 

Putting Wallpaper On The Ceiling In The Reading Nook

The ceiling of the reading nook isn’t really visible from the rest of the room because of the arched opening. I thought it would be fun to install some sort of feature wall to the ceiling so the kids could have something fun to look at while we’re reading. We added this gorgeous wallpaper to the ceiling in the small reading nook and it is just perfect! 

Adding Chandelier Light

The room previously had just canned recessed lighting, but you can’t have a dining room table without a statement light fixture above it, right? 

Building DIY Faux Wood Beams

As the chef’s kiss, we built these faux wood beams to frame out the openings on both of the walls. They are distressed for that perfect rustic look that looks totally authentically old. 

Learn how to make faux wood beams in this step-by-step tutorial!

Traditional Style Dining Room Reveal

Are you ready to see the finished dining room? Have a lookie. 

Color Scheme

To go with the transitional style dining room, I envisioned a soft color palette. Originally I was thinking of using a warm cream as the paint color in the room, but Logan encouraged me to add some color on the walls and I’m SO glad we did.

Color schemes can be tricky, so you may be hesitant to use color and stick with neutrals, but colors are so important in design! There are gray walls in both the kitchen and living room, so the usage of color was a great choice here. 

Along with the sage green paint color, we added white paint on the baseboards and ceiling, dark wood tones, warm grays, tans, and other neutrals to create a color scheme that really fits the design style of the room. 

Dining Room Layout

With the cabinets installed at one end of the room and open walls on the other two, the placement of the furniture kind of fell into place. There was really only one place for the wooden dining table to go in the room. 

Area Rug Under Table

Truth be told, Logan did not want to put a rug under the dining table but it just looked so strange without one. Like it was floating out in the middle of the room. Adding the neutral rug underneath the table really helped ground the table and all of the furniture in the larger space. 

And don’t worry…there have only been a couple of spills here and there on the rug! This is no formal dining room, it’s one that we use every day for all of our meals (and homeschool)…so real life definitely happens here. We keep Folex carpet cleaner on hand and spray any stains on the rug before they set. 

Transitional Dining Table

When I was looking at transitional dining tables, I wanted something rectangular that had a removable leaf that could be added to make the dining room table bigger when we have company over.

The table we got can safely hold 8 people for dinner parties and that kind of events. Even with the leaf added to the table (like it is in the photos here), it doesn’t make the space feel too cramped.

Outside of just having a removable leaf, I also really wanted the table to have curved pedestal legs that you see in more traditional dining rooms. It is such an elegant look that I just love! This real wood table will last many years. 

A Mix of Dining Chairs

I love it when all the chairs at a dining room table don’t match perfectly. There’s something about the simple contrast that always makes it more unique.

For our dining chairs, we added modern black wooden chairs with a Windsor-style back around the sides of the table and upgraded the head and foot of the table with nice upholstered chairs with a more contemporary style.

Adding something more substantial at the ends of the table is a popular choice. I love the mix of clean lines on the black chairs paired with the curves on the upholstered chairs. 

Cozy Reading Nook with Small Sofa

The reading nook is one of my favorite parts of the room. Although most dining rooms wouldn’t have something like a sofa or a reading nook, it works perfectly for this dining room that we also use as our homeschool space.

We use the reading nook every single day so I’m glad we added it. 

Upright Piano

When we first started renovating the dining room, we were going to get rid of our piano (which used to be in the laundry room where we had to move the desk). But after looking at the dining room more and more during the renovation we decided to carve out a little corner to put the piano. 

It’s a bit of a tight fit, but it works. The corner would probably otherwise be empty (or hold some other piece of furniture like a china cabinet or table with a large mirror) so we figured this was a better way to use the space. 

Since putting the piano in place a few months ago, our son has taken an interest in playing. That would have never happened if we got rid of it! 

Tiled Wall of Built-In Cabinetry & Shelving

I love the gray subway tile that we added to the wall above the cabinets. The tile was actually a mistake-purchase years ago and has been sitting in our garage since. I’m so glad that we finally found a good place for it and had just the perfect amount! It’s a great backdrop for the decorative elements on the shelves and hanging from the rail. 

Rattan Basket Pendant Light Over Rectangular Table

Even though the dining room style is more transitional, I had to put a little piece of boho in the room! This rattan basket light was the perfect statement light to go over the table and bring a new look to the room. 

I’m SO happy with how the dining room turned out and we’re thrilled to be done living in a renovation zone.

​Before and After Photos: Dining Room Makeover

Here are a few more side-by-side before and after photos of the dining room so you can really appreciate just how far this room has come.