Dining Room Makeover Ideas

A dining room makeover begins with a theme. The theme may be a romantic setting you visited or one of the colors that warm your heart. Bring your theme together with pieces that coordinate the style period of the home and furniture found with other colors in the home to give a consistent appearance to your home dcor. Does this Spark an idea?

Wall Treatments

Paint the room a vibrant red to encourage lively conversation at the dinner table, or opt for the colors of Tuscany with warm gold and oranges. Bring in the fields of Napa with a purplish hue of grapes or the tantalizing azure of a Greek sea with the whitewashed villas above. Write a message across the wall, such as "Share laughter across good food" or "Bone Appetite." Add a wallpaper border of wine bottles with grapes, fresh country vegetables or a variety of pastas or breads.

Furniture

A few pieces of new furniture give your dining room an updated appearance. Eliminate wobbly chairs or tables by donating them to charity, and replace them with new ones. To keep costs down, purchase unfinished furniture you can stain yourself and include a corner cabinet or shelving unit you can paint to resemble a built-in. Bring in a display cabinet or one with open shelving on top but closed storage below for table linens, placemats and supplies.

Fabrics

Transform the room by changing the fabrics it contains. Replace seat cushions with a durable material in your new color scheme. Place a floor-length, print curtain panel to each side of the window with a valence, or add wooden shutters stained to match the furniture. Purchase new table linens to cover an older table or seasonal ones for holiday dinners. Purchase napkins, placemats and table runners in coordinating colors and prints to carry your theme through the room.

Accessories

Crystal glassware adorns the shelves while china plates stand in a row behind individual place settings. Place a collection of pottery and other decorative items, such as a collection of spoons, tea cups or salt shakers on the shelves. Framed photographs of family and friends hang on the wall with scenic paintings or groupings of small pictures framed and matted of various wine scenes, pasta dishes or cooking implements. Remove drawer pulls and add ones of silverware, or set up an easel in the corner and write the dinner menu on it each day for special occasions.