Can you believe we’re already heading into July? This week is an extra special one as our friends, neighbors, and community members across North America gear up for some of the biggest celebrations of the summer.
Whether you are firing up the grill for Canada Day on July 1st 🇨🇦 or setting up the lawn chairs for the 4th of July 🇺🇸, my team and I want to wish you and your family a fantastic, safe, and joyful holiday week!
The steps to a beautiful dining room
Most people assume a beautiful dining room starts with an expensive dining table.
It doesn’t.
Over the past 25 years I’ve discovered there’s a sequence to decorating a dining room, and once you understand that sequence, decorating becomes dramatically easier. In this week’s one-day makeover, I’m walking you through the exact six-step formula I use to transform dining rooms again and again.
You know that feeling of standing in your dining room knowing something isn’t right but having no idea what to fix? The table is fine. The chairs are fine. You’ve got a cabinet against one wall and maybe a buffet against another, and the whole room still feels like a collection of furniture instead of a room. It’s not that you don’t have taste, you just need the right steps.
This week’s makeover was for Terreeia’s best friend Terry and his wife Marcia. When I walked in, they had cabinets everywhere, dishes from decades of life, and no plan. By the end of one day, the dining room was so transformed that when I showed someone the after photos yesterday, they thought it was AI.
It wasn’t. It was the same six-step formula I run every single time. Yes the image above is a sneak peek!!??
The best part? We kept the homeowners’ well-loved dining table—even though it was scratched, chipped and covered with family memories.
If you’ve ever looked at your dining room and felt like something was missing, this video will show you what comes next.
Watch the makeover below and see the six-step formula in action.
Ready to transform your room? Get all my best formulas, from choosing the perfect lamp, to finally tackling that gallery wall in Styling School. School is in session! Get it here.
Related posts:
5 Common Decorating Mistakes in the Dining Room
I liked most of changes however not the palm art infrared framed non related on other side . But I agree with your formula
That’s the fun of decorating—we all see rooms differently! The palm artwork totally belongs in Europe. There are palm trees all over southern Europe—in Italy, Spain, Portugal, the South of France and Greece—so it didn’t feel out of place to me at all. I’m glad you liked the formula!
I wish these makeovers used more of the homeowners’ own things to give the rooms more personality. The problem with buying everything at the same store on the same day is it’s too coordinated and matchy matchy. It’s great you kept the table but I wish some of the art or knickknacks were things they’ve collected over the years.
Hi Sarah, If they had meaningful artwork or collected treasures that worked with the new design, I would absolutely have incorporated them. In this case, they were ready for a fresh start, and the pieces they wanted to keep simply weren’t the accessories. They were the memories attached to their dining table, and I’m so glad we were able to make that table shine again. 😊 I’m not attached to new — I’m attached to beautiful. If your existing pieces are beautiful and belong in the room, I’ll fight to keep them. But if they’re just taking up space because you’ve had them for 20 years, that’s a different conversation. Thanks for your comment!
This was an excellent video, very helpful to me! So helpful to watch the process not just see the end result. Thank you!
Some people hate video. Is there a reason you can’t write it as a blog post too?
I hear you! Some people love reading, and some people love watching. These makeovers really need to be seen because so much of the teaching is visual: scale, styling, colour balance, what stays, what goes, and why the room suddenly works.
So for now, this series is video-first. My blog is still there for written colour advice, but these transformations are best learned by watching them happen.