Modern Farmhouse Dining Room Makeover | 2 Days – 290 Dollars

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Everyone goes through design style changes over a lifetime. But it can be so expensive and overwhelming to try to constantly keep up with trends. So, what do you do when your home decor style changes? You get creative on a budget! See how I transformed my modern farmhouse dining room in 2 days for $290!

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Modern Farmhouse Dining Room Makeover

Before we get too far into the reveal, let’s take a look at what my dining room looked like before.

Dining Room Before

There was nothing wrong with my dining room design! However, my style has shifted more towards a modern boho style rather than full on farmhouse. So the “all white everywhere” and blue vintage rug didn’t quite fit my vibe anymore.

On the other hand, my dining room has come a LONG WAY from the indoor spa it used to be! If you haven’t seen the true “before” photos, make sure to see how we converted this indoor spa into our dining room.

Dining Room Makeover Plan

My good friend, Cynthia Harper, inspired me to take on a 2 day $200 challenge to makeover a space. Since I’ve been wanting to update this space to a modern farmhouse dining room, I thought it was the perfect time to flex my creative muscles!

So, with a small budget comes much creativity and a lot of painting. It always amazes me what paint can do.

And that’s what I love about haven making! We each put our own spin on a style and make it our own. You can learn more about how to do that in my book, Designing a Life: From House to Haven.

Here was the plan:

• Paint the woodwork around the fireplace.
• Paint the door to the master bedroom.
• Modernize the existing buffet.
• Create unique wall art.
• Add a pendant across our skylight.
• Update decor and the rug.
• Darken the trim surrounding the openings.
• Do it all in 2 days for $200.

Modern Farmhouse Dining Room Reveal

And, ta-da!!!

I’m so extremely excited with how it turned out! It was a ton of work to squeeze into two days and I plan to break down each step for you!

If you follow me on Instagram, I do have the whole process saved to my video highlights!

I will be writing separate posts sharing how I updated the buffet, created this wall art, and hung a pendant light where there is a skylight and no electrical! {Updated: Pendant light post is live!}

However, for now, let’s just walk through the updates.

Stained Trim

As you can see above, our entire home had orange oak trim. I chose to leave the two openings to the dining room a stained wood rather than painting it white. However, I never liked the color of the stain.

To remedy that, I combined two stains I had on hand together to create my own custom stain. This allowed me to darken the wood and remove some of that orange tone.

Paint

Next, I painted the fireplace inset and the master bedroom door.

I used Magnolia Home Blackboard for the black trim surrounding the fireplace and Benjamin Moore White Dove for the chevron inset.

I love how the black defines the fireplace and makes it appear larger. Maybe someday down the road I will add a mantel or figure out a way to connect the top and bottom to be a seamless built in look.

Update Existing Furniture

After that, I painted my existing dining room buffet. This Ikea hack was so simple. I wanted to modernize my farmhouse-feeling buffet so I mixed together my Blackboard paint with a bit of white to soften it and painted the interior of the piece.

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Mixing your own paint from leftovers is a great way to save money! Just make sure that you mix enough the first time to cover everything with two coats. Mixing the exact same color a second time is nearly impossible!

Add Lighting

The biggest statement maker was adding this pendant lighting. I’m going to do a whole separate post sharing how I added a functional pendant over a skylight soon, so stay tuned!

I absolutely adore how it has heightened the design of this room and adds so much warmth. Plus, now we can actually see our food at dinner time! 🙂

Dress Up the Walls, Windows and Floor

My final touches to this new modern farmhouse dining room was to add curtains, wall art, and a new rug.

Would you believe that those curtains are actually cheap bed sheets? It’s true! I love green, as you can see from my bedroom accent wall, but finding forest green curtains within budget was impossible.

So, I decided to think outside the box and found these affordable flat sheets in the color I wanted! Then, I used leftover extender bars from my office chandelier to use as curtain rods!

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After that I wanted to focus on changing up the decor. I created this wall art out of a vintage tablecloth my mom gave me. I will do a tutorial on that soon!

And to top it off, or to lay the foundation, I found this beautiful rug from Well Woven.

I’m so happy with how it all turned out! For the rest of the decor, I simply shopped my house and moved things around to make the space feel fresh.

2 Days, $290

All in, I spent $290 on this entire modern farmhouse dining room makeover. I used lots of leftover paint, stain and home decor to modernize the space. Then, I found affordable home accents to fill in the gaps in design.

I can’t wait to share more details on each individual project soon! Make sure to subscribe to the blog to be notified when more details are released.

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I’d love to know, what do you think of the makeover?! Leave me a comment below!

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