Dining Room Makeover with Decorist

When my husband and I moved into a three-bedroom house from a one-bedroom apartment in the city, I realized how few things I’d actually owned (not counting shoes) over the last ten years. Once we moved everything into the house and unpacked it all, I was like “That’s IT?” Because all of our stuff basically fit in the living room.

To help us make use out of more than just one room in the house without going broke, we’ve had to get creative about where we’re getting our furniture. As luck would have it, one of my aunts moved to Florida at the same time we were buying our house, and offered us her dining set and buffet table. So of course we said yes.

The set is lovely. It’s old, it’s antique, and it’s nothing I could ever afford to buy on my own. But, it’s not exactly what I would have chosen, since it’s a little too traditional for my taste, and it felt a little heavy since it had a dark stain and red-and-green cushions.

I knew I could make it feel more modern though, and I started by recovering the cushions with a more contemporary fabric. Which is as far as I got. After that, I wasn’t sure what to put in the room to make it feel more my style, so I’ve basically just been ignoring it.

Until a few weeks ago, when I heard about a new website called Decorist, which I’ve since become obsessed with (we interviewed the site’s founder for Women We Love a few weeks back, too!). They offer “mini-makeovers,” where you send it photos of you room as it is, a questionnaire about your likes and dislikes,  your budget, and in my case, links to a few Pinterest boards, and one of their designers sends you back a solution, complete with a  detailed shopping list.

Here’s what I got back:

Option 1:

Option 2:

I decided to go with option 1, since I loved the dark blue walls and the black-and-white-striped rug, which ties into my black-and-white living room. I’ve already gone and painted the walls of the dining room Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy (a little preview of which is shown above!), and I plan to implement the rest of the design over the next few weeks, which I’ll share as it progresses. Stay tuned!