#OneRoomChallenge Week 5: Vintage Bohemian Dining Space

You know the phrase “measure twice, cut once?” Well it was more like measure three times, cut twice in this case.

Okay maybe I’m exaggerating a bit… we actually had very few mistakes on this project and I’m pretty sure zero bickering! Wait, what project you ask? Well, this lovely DIY wainscotting you’re seeing here folks! For about $80 and only one day’s worth of work this room now has custom wainscoting that finally ties everything together. This room finally “pops.” Even Sal can’t believe it- everytime he walks through the dining room he just stops and stares. Then after a moment he’ll exclaim, “I love it!” Warms my little heart.

Before I get into how we accomplished this, let’s look back at the “Before” and “After” side by side.

Before: lacking color + cohesiveness, hand me down furniture needing a facelift, and the original light fixture that came with our rental

Week 5: cohesiveness within the design elements and the wainscoting is finally up!

The Wainscoting

For what feels like months I had been planning and measuring, waiting for the right time to get this finished. Obviously most people paint first, but since all we had to do was move a few pieces of furniture away from the wall, we opted to wait. In a way, I almost wanted to see it all come together at the end, and this was the perfect way. Aside from plants, obviously.

Thanks to good ole Home Depot, we were able to get all of our supplies for about $80. They make verts especially for wainscoting at 39″ and most of the walls in the dining room are also under three feet so it worked out that we could use those for most of the lats as well.

Again, people may think I’m insane for putting this much work into a rental- but we only used two trim nails in each board so, in actuality, it’s very temporary! We plan on taking it with us and will only have to paint the remaining blocks of paint on the walls when we vacate.

I broke another cardinal rule during this project and didn’t test my paint. (Blasphemy, I know.) Partly in order to save time and trips to the store, and partly because I just knew it was the one. Love at first sight I guess you could say.

Honestly, if it was anywhere in the realm of this certain shade I would have been happy. It’s Behr Mountain Falls in Matte. This was the first time I have used a matte finish and I see what the hype is all about, even sans children! These photos make it look a bit bluer, but it’s actually a perfect, powdery greyish sage.

The Shelf

Another fun little project I completed this week was adding leather “straps” to the white plant shelf in the corner. You normally see these on floating shelves, but I thought it would add a nice pop of color to the still-white top half of the room.

The other day I gave this old babe a fresh coat of Rustoleum Chalked spray paint. Next, I took some of my navy blue upcycled leather normally designated for earring making and cut two strips. Then I simply used thumbtacks we already had laying around and secured them to the wall. Et voila! A new look for a very old shelf.

One of my favorite pastimes is roaming the yard for different clippings to fill our various vases and bottles, so I completed this week’s look by foraging the yard for vines and ferns to bring inside. Luckily, this tree in our backyard needed pruning anyhow. I like this one so much I may even ditch store-bought for the centerpiece and go wild for the big reveal!

Speaking of, I can’t believe that’s already next week! Six weeks have flown by so quickly. I’ve got a few surprises in store that even I didn’t expect to include last minute! Thank you all so much for following along. I can’t wait to see everyone’s finished spaces.