This is my old dining room: BLAH!

This table was purchased before my husband and I got married, because it’s bar height, it is completely the wrong table for us not that we have an 18 month old. Since we have built our house, we are slowly starting to re introduce furniture that goes better with the style of our new home. The whole dining room re-do started because I wanted a barn wood table, unfortunately, they were out of our price range so we turned to craigslist. We sold out current table for $400.00 and bought a barn wood “style” table on craigslist that came with 3 chairs for $100.00 which left me $300 in profit to work with for the rest of the dining room.

After sanding the new table and staining it to look like barn wood (greyish brown), we had a table but nothing else. Most people start with a budget when re-designing but I start with a list of what I absolutely need, price out those items to come to a budget, otherwise I find myself spending more money than I need to.

Our new dining room looks like this and the cost break down is as follows:

Table: Once we sanded and stained this we probably spent around $145.00
End Chairs: These were my splurge from TJ Maxx, they were $149.00 each
Curtains: Because the panels had to be 108″ they were $49 each and the rod was $45 (this had to be a custom rod that could extend 12′) both were from Overstock.com. They have free shipping for purchases over $50, make sure to look for type of fabric when purchasing curtains and I always go with grommets on large windows because they are easier to move on the rod.
Light Fixture: This we purchased when we built the house so I didn’t count it in the budget but it was $89.00 from Costco
Picture Frames: These were from Khols and everything on the wall was $149; however, I purchased these on a Wednesday, I know from experience that Khols has weekly sales on Saturdays so I took my receipt back on Saturday and got $77 returned to my credit card so the wall décor only ended up costing $72 plus about $10 for the prints (I use Steamrollers, its very inexpensive for prints).
Rug: We already had this but believe it or not it was just a Walmart purchase for $20
Table Runner and Center Piece: My favorite store, Tai Pan the center piece was only $9.99 for the pot and $4.99 for the flowers which I also used in the wall display. The runner was $19.99 but it came in a huge roll that you cut to size and I was able to use it in multiple places around the house.

All in all I ended up spending:
       Table                +255.00
       End Chairs         (300.00)
       Curtains             (145.00)
       Light Fixture      already had
       Wall Décor        (82.00)
       Rug                    already had
       Table Décor       (35.00)
       Grand Total       $307.00

This is a serious budget for a dining room. We did make some profit on our old table, but if I would have given myself a budget first, I’m sure I would have ended up spending $500-$1000.

In the future, I do hope to do a dining room expansion and at that time I will purchase my dream barn wood farmhouse table but for now, this is a great dining room for $307.00!!!!!

After I posted this blog, I went to TJMaxx…..again, and ended up purchases an old sign…I guess this brings the new total to $357!