Easy Dining Room Refresh

Hi there! Today I want to show you how quick and easy it is to get a completely different look in your dining room, just by swapping out a few things! If you’re like me, you are always wanting to freshen things up and change your decor around, but without spending a lot of money! You can definitely get a whole new look on a budget and today I’m going to show you how.

Here’s the first look I created in our dining room – very monochromatic, mostly neutral with just subtle hints of soft color.

And here’s the second look, where I refreshed the space and made it feel more bright and bold with stronger moments of contrast and color.It’s definitely a whole different feel and you might be surprised to find out how easy and inexpensive it can be to change things up! Here are my tips for decorating your dining room on a budget!

Start with neutrals >> As I mentioned in this post about our dining room makeover, I wanted to build a neutral foundation. A light wood reclaimed wood table, linen and wood chairs and a long linen settee are the pieces I chose for our dining room. This modern farmhouse meets traditional look provides the perfect neutral base for me to build upon no matter the season or occasion or whatever decorating mood I am feeling at the moment.

Switch up the small things >> When refreshing your dining room, think small. You’ve already got your big pieces in place so now you’ll want to think about the accessories. Change up the little things, like the pillows and the items you display on your table.

Build a collection and use what you have >> I always recommend buying things you LOVE when you find them. I’m not saying to go crazy and fill your cart every time you are out shopping or online, but when you see something you absolutely love, pick it up and then you’ll start to build a collection of things that you can rotate around. This is what I do especially when it comes to pillows, cake plates, antique dishes and other little display pieces. Now when I am itching to change things up, I can move things to a different spot or put something away and bring another piece out to replace it. It makes it super easy to refresh the whole space when you don’t even have to go out shopping or buy anything new!

As you can see, I really only switched out the pillows and the items on the table and yet the space feels different now. It went from soft and light to more bright and bold simply by adding in the vibrant yellow velvet pillows and bright green palm leaf pillows. I also brought in more contrast by including the large black and white flocked peacock pillows on the end chairs. These pillows have my heart! They move around to different rooms in our home all the time and they work everywhere! I love that the peacock print is so fun and adds such a graphic punch. All the pillows and inserts are from Tonic Living and the quality is top notch! More on that here.

Finally I changed the dishes to these white ones so as not to compete with the other things going on and also added a fern to the table. I love ferns because of the bright saturated green they add to any space. It instantly breathes fresh new life into a room.

Wondering how I keep the pillows and fabric covered chairs clean in a dining room? We do use this space to eat in all the time as it’s right off the kitchen and it’s our only dining area. And we do have 6 kids, and yes it is still clean and still looks like this. There are a few things we do. First off, we talk a lot about manners with our children and teach them to lean over their plates, be careful and to not be sloppy when they are eating. Secondly if we are eating something that is a little messier, I will often take the pillows off the settee and stack them in the corner or in the family room while we eat. That definitely keeps them out of harm’s way. Also if it’s spaghetti or something that stains and you have a young little one who’s learning to eat at the table (like Henry will be soon) you can easily put a dish towel or small cloth down over the cushioned seat to protect it while you eat. And then we also used Scotchguard to protect all the fabric, because of course there will be accidents and spills along the way. Hope that helps!

Happy Friday!

xoxoxo

Sources >> Black & White Flock Peacock Pillows / Black & White Intersections Pillows / Tropical Leaf Pillows / Herringbone Natural Pillows / Light Wood Farmhouse Style Dining Table / Linen & Wood Dining Chairs (similar) / Caned Back End Chairs (similar) / Linen Dining Bench / Moulding / Pillows / Cake Plates

This post was created in collaboration with Tonic Living.