Dining Room Remodel Before and After

Love it? Share it!

Hello my friends! I’m excited to finally reveal our dining room remodel before and after photos. This was the first and largest project we tackled when we moved into our new home in March of 2018. It completely changed the look of our home, so let’s get to some dining room remodel before and after shots!

Dining Room Remodel Before and After

This post may contain affiliate links where I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Let’s start with a quick story about our new home.

We chose to leave our previous home to give our kids more room to roam. My husband and I both love living in the country and wanted a larger plot of land. So when this home came on the market my husband immediately showed it to me.

And I said, “Ummm, nope.”

Our previous home was basically “done” after our large remodel after our house fire and I wasn’t completely on board with a fixer upper. But this house has beautiful land and after several months on the market the price dropped, which peaked my interest.

So we scheduled a showing and I left thinking, “No way.” Then over the next week God kept bringing the home to mind and my brain wouldn’t shut off thinking about all the updates I would make.

So, we came back for a second showing and the rest is history! But I knew before we ever made an offer that if this specific portion of the remodel wasn’t possible then I would never be happy with the house. And now you’ll see why.

Queue the indoor hot tub…and aquarium.

Dining Room Before

Dining Room…Ahem…Spa Room Before

Now, I’m not saying that if you really love the hot tub life that this wouldn’t work for you.

Me? I’m not really a hot tubbing kind of gal. Especially not in the middle of the house.

The “spa room” wasn’t my speed and I knew I wanted to remove it. Much to the kids’ dismay, the ability to remodel this room was a make it or break it for me. Either the hot tub went or we didn’t buy the house. Thankfully, we made it happen and the story is quite remarkable!

This home didn’t have the dining room space that I wanted prior to remodeling the spa room so I knew that we could transform the space into a functional family dining space.

We just needed to take down a wall, remove an 800 lb hot tub from inside the house, and take out a 400 gallon aquarium built into the wall. Easy right?

Remove the Wall

The first step to this large remodel was to remove the wall separating the former spa room from the kitchen area. This wall housed all the plumbing and quite a bit of electrical for the aquarium so we didn’t feel comfortable doing it ourselves.

Queue the God moment.

We had a couple of contractors come to bid out the job and while discussing the project with our contractor he kept eyeing the hot tub. After a while he asked my husband what we were planning to do with the tub because he happened to be looking for one. So we traded!

God worked it out so perfectly. We bartered the hot tub in return for the labor and materials for removing the wall and putting it back together. The contractor also raised this opening a foot and a half to take advantage of the vaulted ceilings.

Can you believe that!? We were so grateful.

Ixnay the Aquarium

Before removing the wall we had to take out the 400 gallon salt water aquarium.

My hubby did a lot of work to get that baby out. Then we sold it on craigslist and used that money to pay for the plumber to do all the necessary work to remove the plumbing in the wall.

After the aquarium was out it was time to start removing the wood planks. Our contractor removed them carefully so he could reuse them to frame the space back in once the wall was down. He reused as many materials as he could and it worked out beautifully.

After the wall was removed the plumbing and electrical were tied off by professionals and then the real work began! Removing an 800 lb hot tub.

Hot Tub Be Gone!

I’ve just gotta give major props to my husband for this project. He, along with my dad, brother, father-in-law and a few friends removed this tub by hand using a system of jacks, framing, boards to prop and ply and pure muscle.

However, the major trick was getting it out of the house!

Once the wall was gone it fit well through the opening, but on the way out of the house there was only centimeters of space to fit it through our double doors. Let’s just say there were a lot of moments of shear panic as I watched 5 men man-handle the hot tub out of the house without assistance from machinery.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of them carrying it out. It was quite impressive…and terrifying. But I was in total “make sure no one dies” mode so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Frame the Wall + Add Floor Joists

After all of the unwanted elements of the room were gone everyone started to put it back together. Our contractor finished framing the wall and drywalled the space.

My husband, dad and father-in-law put the floor joists in where the hot tub once sat and removed all the tile.

(See all those wires coming out of the wall? Click {HERE} to read all about how I fixed the problem of electrical components in an unfortunate space.)

And it started to look like it was always an open concept home!

Our next blessing from God came in the form of flooring! The laminate floor that was laid in the entire first floor was about 9 years old. We were able to track down the make and brand and found out that it was discontinued.

It was important to my husband to carry the flooring through the whole house so we worked with a local flooring company to track down all the remaining boxes of flooring in stock across the country. What a blessing to find exactly the number of boxes we needed of this discontinued flooring to be able to complete our new dining room!

Dining Room After

After all of the major elements of the project were complete it was up to me to put it all back together!

We painted the pine boards white to mimic shiplap and brighten the space. My husband replaced the dated outdoor sconces with these modern farmhouse sconces. Finally, the rest of the project was all about decorating and making the space a functional family dining room.

Here come the dining room remodel before and after shots! I can hardly believe it is the same space.

You can read all about our budget kitchen remodel {HERE} as well!

I’m so happy we were able to create a dining room in this space. It feels like it was meant to be.

And the bonus of the whole project is that we were able to keep this two sided fireplace so that you can now see from the living room into the dining room and enjoy the warmth of a cozy fire.

It may be slightly odd that the master bedroom is off of the dining room (since this was previously built to be a master suite with bonus spa room), but it just makes our home unique and allows us to share the story with those who are curious. (Update: See how I fixed this layout issue in this post!)

The next project I want to tackle is the front side of the fireplace. I plan to jazz it up a bit this fall and can’t wait to share that project with you as well!

Would you have ever known a hot tub used to be sunken in the floor where our dining room table sits?

This transformation made our home into a space I enjoy daily. Being able to see out our large picture windows in both the dining room and living room was only made possible by removing the wall to transform the space into an open concept. I can’t imagine it any other way now.

We were blessed in so many ways by this project. Thankfully the wall was not load bearing. Our contractor traded us his labor for the hot tub. We were able to safely remove the hot tub when there were many moments that we weren’t sure it would make it!

Plus, we were able to track down 9 year old discontinued flooring. God was certainly at work through the whole process and we are so grateful!

So what do you think? Did we make the right choice in transforming this space from spa to dining? I hope you enjoyed the dining room remodel before and after photos!

They are a beautiful reminder to me of how far we’ve come in this little haven we create day by day.

Be blessed my friends!