Forget Design on a Dime! How about Design on a Nickel - Dining Room Makeover Part 1.

This is the before shot of my dining room. (Please forgive the low-res cell phone pictures since I took these before I decided to start blogging.) I will be posting changes to this room slowly, because that is exactly how it is progressing - slowly. My budget for this room is $500 and so far I have used $117 after painting and installing Styrofoam chair rails and shadow box molding. I still need to hang the striped silk drapes I had leftover from my apartment, replace the ceiling fan with an inexpensive chandelier and add furniture.

This is the first after shot of my dining room after painting and installing Styrofoam chair rails and Styrofoam shadow box molding. The foam molding was so easy! I prepainted the foam (because I forgot to prime the chair rails, I still need to go over it with another coat), mitered the corners using a miter box and hand saw, applied construction adhesive to the back of each piece and attached it to the wall. I painted the walls with Ralph Lauren's Regent Metallics in Lush Brown, used a gold metallic Sharpie paint pen and a straightedge to draw the diamonds on the wall and accented the intersecting points with upholstery nailheads. I still need to touch up the paint around the thermostat and the edges. Dining Room Part 2 will be coming next week!

And it's DIY Day over at A Soft Place to Land hosted by Kimba. Be sure to check out the fantastic DIY projects.