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Laura’s Dining Room and Kitchen (Before + After!)

Dining Room, Home Decor, Home Tour: Laura, Kitchen
By Laura Gummerman

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen While I have loved sharing lots of things with you guys over the last few months (DIYs, recipes, tips, etc.), I am so excited to share something today that is near and dear to my heart—my home! Todd and I bought our first home about a year and a half ago, and while it was a bit of a whirlwind process, I'm so glad we ended up where we did. We only had three weeks to find and buy a house before Todd left on a three-month tour, but thankfully we fell in love with our current house right away and got all the papers signed before he left.

I spent the next three months moving into and renovating the new house (you can read more about that saga here). I kept all the design choices a secret from him until he came back (although, of course, we discussed any ideas he might hate before he left), so when he returned, it was like his own little HGTV home makeover show. Everything looked completely different, and he loved it!

Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen (Before + After!) The house was mostly decorated in brown and beige when I moved in and, unfortunately, neither of those colors exist at all in my color palette. What can I say? I'm a black and grey girl through and through. I had the tile removed and put down a dark wide-board maple floor instead. While it is more maintenance to keep up with a dark floor (every speck shows on dark floors), I still love the flooring choice I made. Totally worth the extra sweeping! I painted all the trim and doors white and painted the dining/kitchen/living room area a pale mint called Sprinkle by Valspar. That whole area only has windows on one side of the space, so it really needed all the brightness it could get, and the mint was just the thing to add some life to the space.

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen I shared this studded side table project earlier this year, and I love having it in this space. It's such a one-of-a-kind piece!

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen I love that Todd (usually!) lets me do my crazy house decorating ideas. I was a little worried that he would balk at the idea of wallpapering a giant mural in our dining room, but he could hardly finish his dinner he was so excited when I proposed the idea one night dinner—YES!

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Pretty soon after Todd and I saw Elsie's dining table, we decided we would try and make our own version. We chose a darker stain and brushed steel legs to fit our style, and we were thrilled with how it turned out. It was our first woodworking project, so we were a little hesitant, but we loved the result. Teamwork! The table is perfect for our mid-century-inspired dining chairs (from TOO by Blu Dot) and bright cowhide rug. 

Overall, we love this little eating nook, and it definitely gets used most for eating brunch. We are big on brunch around here.

Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen (Before + After!)Our kitchen got quite the face-lift as well. I actually haven't seen a side-by-side comparison of the "before and after" until now, so I had forgotten what it used to look like! I painted all the cabinets white to lighten up the space and installed modern hardware on the doors (that project was actually how I really learned to use a drill—wowza!) You can see my rope rug DIY has settled in quite nicely on the floor, and the kitties love to lie on it while we make dinner.

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen My sister bought us these blue stools for our first Christmas in the house, and they are just what our counter needed. So cute!

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen I really wanted to start a kitty gallery wall in the house, so I chose right above the sink so I could see it while I wash dishes. The left top print is by Wesley Bird, and the rest are ones that I made (the pretty grey cat on the bottom left is our cat Charlie).

Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Home Tour— Laura's Dining Room and Kitchen Thanks for letting me share part of our home with you today! I hope you enjoyed it because we are going to give you an inside look into the rest of the house in the weeks to come. I'm excited to show you more! xo. Laura

Credits // Author: Laura Gummerman, Photography: Sarah Rhodes. Photos edited with Stella from the Signature Collection.

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