When It's Time to Re-Do the Dining Room

As you consider redecorating and remodeling your home, remember that one of the most important places for a change is your dining room. After all, this is the room where you and your family meet each day for much-needed time together with each other. It's a room where you often entertain friends and visitors. Also, if you ever intend to re-sell the house, an attractive dining room will greatly improve the overall impression the house will make on prospective buyers. Let's take a look at some easy ways to create a better looking dining room.

First, you need to decide what kind of style or look you want for the dining room. For instance, some people prefer something contemporary, even futuristic. Others choose to go with something that has more of a country look and feel to it. Some people want to go with safe wall colors (whites, off-whites or ivories) while others decide to go bold, choosing colors such as citrus orange.

If you have windows in the dining room, window treatments can also help you enhance the new look you're trying to create. Often, you can find what you need in a home-decoration store, but if there's nothing there that suits you, you can always make your own. One person who opted for the citrus-orange dining room mentioned above made her own window treatments by sewing two extra wide panels with alternating stripes: half tangerine orange, and half a few shades lighter. She then added to the room art that accented the look with greens, ivory and orange. The room was positively spectacular!

And while you're in "do-it-yourself" mode, consider painting a rug as part of your dining-room redecoration project.

That's right, paint a rug. As an example, you might begin your project by placing on your walls a medium-green wainscoting. Paint the wall directly above this also green, but a few shades lighter. Now use yellows, golds and greens to create accents. To top it off, pick out several slipcovers for your dining-room chairs, each in the same butter-yellow color. Once you've done all this, it's time to paint the rug.

For this part of the project, you need a sisal rug. The fabric with a sisal is highly absorbent, and will do a better job of absorbing the paint, giving you a more even look, and also helping it to dry faster. As for the size, usually 8 x 10 feet will work for most dining rooms (neither too big nor too small). For this size rug, get a gallon of paint in each color that you plan to use. For the example room we've been talking about, consider buying about five different colors. These should include a medium yellow, two greens that will match your wall's paint scheme, and a gold. Also, you'll want to get a paint pad for each color of paint that you buy. All of these, you should be able to get from a local home improvement store such as Home Depot.

If you're exceptionally creative, you can come up with your own design. The rest of us, however, will need to find a design that looks good, either in a magazine or from the Web. Once you have the design, paint, and other supplies, place a plastic drop cloth under the carpet. now draw the design onto the sisal with a marker.

Once this is done, dip one paint pad into its corresponding color. Press the pad into the rug fibers (Do NOT brush, just press). Allow that color to dry overnight, then move to the next color. After 5 nights, your design should be complete....and now your spectacular new dining room is complete!