Dining Room

The Best Flatware for Entertaining Outdoors
What makes for great outdoor flatware? Above all else, it should be inexpensive and easy to clean (keep grandmother’s intricate silver inside). Bonus points for any set with natural or nautical details that make make a casual backyard barbecue feel like dining in a posh yacht, glam campground or lavish maharajah tent. Each of these options is not only beautiful, but priced just right to entertain four for less than $60 (and most are under $40).
Taryn Williford
Apr 23, 2014
Before & After: An Outdated Dining Area Gets a Fresh Makeover
This “dark and dreary” dining room just begged for a makeover to not only brighten it up, but also to make it a space that might actually get used. Inhabited by folks who love to entertain, this small room needed more seating and storage as well as a redesign to utilize space better. From Amy: The first thing we did was sell all the existing furniture on Craigslist (and surprisingly, people bought them!).
Adrienne Breaux
Mar 1, 2014
Before & After: A Dining Room Designed on a Dime
Danielle fell in love with the dark wood details and trim throughout this 1927 Dutch Colonial house when she moved in last summer. Though the wood is gorgeous, Danielle felt she needed to work to brighten the space to create the warm and welcoming look she was going for. But she was on a budget! She freecycled major furniture pieces, tackled lots of how-to projects and mixed IKEA textiles with vintage pieces to create a palette of soft colors and treasured finds.
Adrienne Breaux
Feb 15, 2014
Before & After: From Uninspiring Shelf to Ultra-Functional Floating Storage!
When Griffin found this old shelf just “collecting dust” at a local thrift store, she knew there was some place in their home for it, perhaps the garage or maybe the playroom. But it was some creative thinking (and not even that much work!) that transformed it into a surprisingly sophisticated storage piece for a dining room! From Griffin: With the help of my husband we started by removing the base which was made up of 2x4s.
Adrienne Breaux
Feb 2, 2014
Before & After: A Dining Room Refresh
Sometimes it’s just a simple decluttering, a few fresh coats of paint and a less-is-more attitude that completely transforms a room from kind of dark to light and bright, as it did in Cortney’s dining room. From Cortney: Our family spends a lot of time at the dinner table. We (mainly me) were looking for a change. I really wanted to brighten the area and free up the wall space that our hutch was on. We found the new dry bar on Washington, DC Craigslist for $20!
Adrienne Breaux
Jan 18, 2014
Before & After: From Beige to Bold!
Seeing potential in this heavy storage piece from an old bedroom set, Carmina set to work transforming the blah beige finish to a handful of shades of just one hue. Now beautiful and functional, it’s got a modern color palette that updates its style and creates one unique addition to a home! From Carmina: We rescued this piece from a house being cleared out after an estate sale down the alley from our home.
Adrienne Breaux
Jan 4, 2014
Before & After: White IKEA SIGURD Bench Gets a Colorful Makeover
Benches have to be the most versatile piece of furniture ever. Even in the tiniest apartment, there’s room to move a bench around to the foot of the bed, along the entryway, or pulled up to a dining room table. And then there’s the endless ways to customize: starting with just four legs and a seat top, like this affordable plain white SIGURD bench from IKEA, anyone can create the perfect piece to finish off a tricky room.
Taryn Williford
Dec 11, 2013
Paint Color Portfolio: Pale Pink Dining Rooms
Pale pink may not be a common color for the dining room, but I absolutely love it in these inspiration rooms. It’s such a calming and demure color that I can’t imagine not having a relaxing meal in a room so delicate. The pale, peachy hues shown above are subtle, yet unexpected enough to be unique. See below for some colors that can help you get this look. Inspiration Rooms: 1. Yvestown flickr (Licensed under Creative Commons) 2. Kishani Perera for Style Me Pretty 3.
Andie Powers
Sep 13, 2013
Before & After: Cristin’s Mod Podge Buffet Makeover
When Cristin and her husband found this dresser on the curb in their neighborhood, it quickly became apparent why no one had grabbed it first: it’s huge, heavy, and covered in dated white veneer. But with a little vision and a ton of Mod Podge, this beast became a buffet. From Cristin: Last summer, while hosting a garage sale at my house, my husband came home from work and told me there was a buffet table out to the road in our neighborhood.
Tara Bellucci
Apr 9, 2013
Before & After: Laura’s Family Room Finds a New Purpose
Laura spent seven years using this room, with its high ceilings and statement fireplace, as a family room. But considering its pass-through and access to the kitchen, she found a new purpose for the space that felt more natural. The process of transforming a living space into a dining space may not have been without challenges, but the results are stunning!
Tara Bellucci
Feb 21, 2013
Before & After: Colorful Kids’ Art in the Dining Room
Interior designer Lauren Liess had clients with a brand-new dining room looking for a stylish and personal upgrade. The family had a bold, cheerful style (and some budding Picassos!), so she came up with the perfect solution: a kids’ art wall!She added some new curtains, a new overhead fixture, and some sconces in the middle of the gallery wall — but the focus is the kids’ art, which adds a lot of color and fun to the room!
Sarah Dobbins
Feb 20, 2013
Before & After: A Simple Switch Opens Up a Dining Room
I love this Before & After because of its absolute simplicity. This dining room acts as a pass through room in my house. You have to move through it to get from the living room to the kitchen. Even though we kept the furniture in it to a bare minimum (there is ONLY a table and chairs), it still felt stuffy and crowded. Want to see what we changed that did the trick?My husband gets full credit for this re-arrangement in our dining room.
Micki Howl
Sep 22, 2011
Before & After: A Dining Room Goes from Bland to Grand
When looking at the many before and after posts here at Apartment Therapy, it’s easy to think that everyone makes these amazing transformations over a long weekend. Truth be told, most of the projects we see take much longer. This dining room makeover, for instance, took four years of collecting appropriate pieces to go from bland to grand.Elisabeth over at bova goods developed this new look for her dining room over a span of four years.
Jason Loper
May 9, 2011