We moved into our home in July (at 7 months pregnant), it’s been a slow process decorating the place between pregnancy and a newborn to say the least. In our apartments we always used to eat dinner on our laps in front of the TV and that habit continued here at the house… until now!! We finally have a dining room we’re using and having family dinners in. I am loving having my little family together spending time catching up on our day!

This was the picture of our dining room before– salmon brown walls and all.

The dining room was a place where we stored all our junk. Something came in with mail? A package? Baby toys? Photo props? Just toss it on the table… and deal with it… well, never. The only thing we had done to improve the space was paint. The Stonington gray paint helped bring so much light to our house, it really opened it up spaces and made the rooms seem bigger.

When decorating the dining room I was hoping to pull some inspiration from Joanna Gaines— I love her decorating sense of old and new. The dining room table is from my great-grandmother and while it’s not exactly our forever style, I’m so thankful for family, its meaning, and passed down items. The goal with decorating the dining room was to create a background that could be changed fairly regularly as we continue to develop our sense of decorating style as a couple. We also needed to keep a strict budget: I wanted to be able to change out things and change the look for under $50. For this reason I chose a neutral table cloth, which gives us the option of changing the runner and placemats as often as desired to update the “feel” with seasons/holidays.

My husband is always hounding me that I’m trying to turn the entire house gray… I can’t help it. It may be my favorite color.

The table runner and placemats are from TJMaxx, as are the white cake stand, candles, and natural balls. Fabulously enough the green moss is from the Dollar Tree— this cheap find got me excited!

My favorite part of the room are our pictures! I knew I wanted photo ledges to be able to change things out as our family grows and changes. These gray ones I found are from Target. I love that the photo ledges can hold our most recent memories, we’ll be able to print up-to-date photos or put kids’ artwork on display.

The frames are all Threshold brand. Our prints in them are from Shutterfly. I love that they’re always running specials and coupon codes! My absolute favorite part of the dining room are these metal prints from Tiny Prints! I absolutely adore them. Our trip up Route 1 and Yosemite was so special to us and to have it showcased in such a modern and fun way is fabulous. I think it really plays off of Joanna Gaines style too, putting something metal with something natural like the boxwood accents.

It took me forever to decide on which Emma picture to print on metal.. then Tiny Prints only made the process harder by having so many fabulous options and looks. It took me seriously 10 minutes to pick out which font type– so many fabulous choices. The best part when it came to decorating the photo ledges was that Tiny Prints has so many options for layouts and styles. It was fabulous to find a ridiculously cute design that matched my little owl.

 Did I mention I’m a sucker for good packaging? The prints came sealed in plastic and were secure! 

Love!

Another play off old and new is the antique basin my parents found for us mixed with the new metal tray. I wanted a space to display bottles my husband wants to keep (and that space not be the tops of our kitchen cabinets like we’re back in college!). I’m so proud of his hops being used in the 10 Farmers Ale. The boxwood balls are from Target (and I saw them in one of the houses on Fixer Upper) and the hops are from yours truly, Split Rail Hop Farm.

Research has found that eating dinner with your kids is one of the best things you can do for them. Research aside, it does my heart so much good to eat with our cereal love monster and her sweet Daddy.

Here’s a few more pictures of the makeover!

Our dogs tend to photobomb a lot of captured moments around here…

It’s just a wee bit messy…

Dog photobomb again…

Once we got the photo ledges up there may or may not have been a period of time  it stayed half done

Then these orange beauties came in the mail and I got motivated to finish!

The picture of Emma is my favorite! I’ll be adding more of those if we’re blessed with more children in place of the canvas.

The balls on the cake stand are certainly another favorite of the space!

The house immediately smelled like hops after pouring them in the tray– it make me anxious about having to harvest hundreds of pounds of the little boogers again!

Emma was 2 weeks old when we went to the pumpkin patch!

Little Miss enjoying dinner with us!

While making over the dining room with the items featured in the post cost more than $50, it is a one time cost that will help me decorate more cost efficiently in the future. Buying the ledges, frames, and pieces that will stay with the room were an investment that will stick around over the years. Using a hand-me-down table and not changing out the light fixture at this time were other ways I saved on money. I’m excited to see the dining room change over seasons, family additions, trip pictures, etc. For $50 or under I can now change out the pictures in the frames, add more home decor items, or update the table runner and placemats.