Rustic Scandinavian Dining Room Reveal -One Room Challenge

Rustic Scandinavian Dining Room Makeover: final reveal of the six week dining room makeover with before and after pictures.

Jump to:

The Dining Room Makeover Journey
Dining Room Makeover Paint
Console Table
Bar Cart
The Deer Art
The Table
Gold Chandelier
Life Lessons From Decorating
Dining Room Makeover Sponsors

I’m so excited to finally show you my One Room Challenge final dining room makeover reveal! It’s week six of the challenge, and it’s finally all come together -be sure to check out all the other final reveals of all the other guest bloggers this week too.

I was inspired by Rustic Scandinavian Design, and wanted to make my dining room lighter, and brighter with a rustic touch. Here’s what the room looked like six weeks ago.

The Dining Room Makeover Journey

If you’ve missed anything, catch up with us here:

Dining Room Makeover Paint

Before the makeover the walls were beige, and the furniture was all dark black. Over the six weeks, we painted the room white, painted some of the furniture white and changed the hardware, refinished the table to a light grey, made slipcovers for the chairs, spray painted the chandelier gold and made some new art for the room.

It was a lot to do, but I love the results. It’s certainly lighter and brighter.

Rustic Scandinavian Dining Room makeover reveal

Console Table

At the front door, I painted the black console table to white, and added this new sweet art work. Isn’t it the cutest? Love his expression, love the black and white, and love the bit of whimsy it adds to the room.

Bar Cart

I tried to use lots of the colour white, wood, and natural materials to bring the whole room together.

I picked up some more pretty gold vintage bar glasses at a second hand store this week. I’m all ready for cocktail hour.

Don’t you just love their little carrying caddy?

The Deer Art

At the other end of the room the buffet was also painted and got new vintage inspired hardware. The art was a fun project. Find the full tutorial on how to make the DIY Deer Art here. I love the way it came out, and the vintage books as the canvas turned out great.

One of my favourite little vignettes in the room is this wooden dough bowl filled with fine crochet thread for lace making.

With a neutral room, lots of texture is important to add interest, so when I a saw a bag of the thread at the second hand store one day, I picked it up and kept my eye out for a few more bags in the weeks that followed. I love how they look grouped together in the wooden bowl.

The old books are a bunch my mom had in an old trunk. I mentioned to her that I was looking for some, and she offered them too me and they were perfect for what I had in mind. See the tutorial of how I made the deer head book art here.

The Table

This week I refinished the dining room table -see the tutorial here. What a job it was. It was hours and hours of work but my dark black table is now a beautiful weathered grey and I love it!

After the first few hours of work, I never would have believed it would come out looking this amazing. I had a friend who does a lot of restoring of antiques helping me. Without him I don’t think I would have been able to do it. Since this is a newer factory made piece, it was really difficult to remove the baked on finish. With lots of perseverance and a few tricks of the trade we did it. I couldn’t be happier with the results. The Minwax classic grey stain looks amazing.

You can see the beautiful china cabinet in the background too. I love it white!

Gold Chandelier

And let’s not forget the beautiful gold chandelier. The light got a makeover last week, and went from standard silver, to amazing gold statement light.

I’m so glad the room is done. Having the house a little on the upside down side of things for six weeks had its challenges, but I’m so glad I did.

Week by week and project by project I saw it all come together.

Life Lessons From Decorating

I wasn’t sure at first, that what I had envisioned would really come to life. In the beginning, I felt like I had to be brave and trust my gut, and I’m so glad I did. I really love it now, and even though it’s a small thing in the grand scheme, I’m reminded that if we are brave enough to change things -things that weren’t even so bad in the beginning, we might get something amazing, something we love.

It’s easier to change things in life and in decorating when they are terrible. But it’s a lot harder when they’re ok, but not great, and we’re afraid we might wreck them instead of making them better. I have heard a little whisper in my ear as I’ve painted, and refinished, and sewn for this room, a little whisper calling me to be brave and try new things, and see what I might be able to create and accomplish. So I’m listening and trying to learn my lessons, and so glad for the space to try new things.

I can’t wait to tackle the living room in the spring (when my sweet, but very orderly husband has had time to recover from six weeks of not so much order as he’s used too -ahhh we’re all being stretched).

Thanks so much to my readers who’ve hung in with me, and given me so much kind and generous encouragement over the process. I’ve appreciated it so much.