before & after {dining room}

I love looking at before and after shots of home renovations.  I could do it all day long.  I thought I would share some of my own before and after shots since we have done a good amount of work to our home.  We have lived in our home for two years now.  It is a split level home with about 2300 square feet.  A little bigger than we first anticipated our starter home to be, but it was the right one!
The decor of the house when we first bought it was earth tones, every room was tan, and any stained wood was a honey oak color.  I liked it well enough but it wasn't exactly my style... so soon enough we got to working! :)  I'm going to share pictures of our dining room {which is really just a dining area} because its just our eat-in kitchen area.  Here are the before pics:

The kitchen table showed in the before pics is the same one I bought for $30 off craigslist and used in my college apartment!  And good news about the floors was they were in good shape... ready to be refinished! Here is the after:

rug - Ikea, table & chairs - Crate & Barrel, picture frames - Pottery Barn

First in the room, we painted.  The main walls {which carry all throughout our living room and hallway} went from tan to a light blue/gray.  Then we painted the back wall that has the windows, door, and cabinets from the dark green they had to a charcoal gray.  We also switched out the stained trim from around the windows and door to white.  The floor got a refinishing {which we hired out} and went from a honey oak color to a dark walnut. 

We retired the kitchen table from the college years and replaced it with one from Crate & Barrel.  It took me FOREVER to decide on a table.  But I'm very happy with it!  All the chairs are from Crate & Barrel as well.  The two on the ends of the table are the chairs that match the set sold in the store.  The wicker ones {which I actually have 6 of but I like a little more room on a day-to-day basis} are a grayish color that I paired up with the table just to have a little bit of a mix and match look {less mix and more match though}.  The rug is from Ikea, which we picked up on our trip to NYC - which you can read a little about here.  And yes, my husband carried the rug through Manhattan to find a post office and we had it mailed back to us, love him!  It was well worth it because I think the rug adds just the right colors to the space.  Then I chose to hang pictures I had taken in some awesome frames I got on clearance from Pottery Barn.  Notice how my sunflower picture nicely coordinates with my bouquet on the table. :)
Things I would still like to in this area include getting or making some window treatments {probably buy some cause lets be honest, I don't really sew}, and I'm also pondering the idea of painting the back door a color... but we will see.  So this the the first before & after to share with you all... more to come!