If you would like to join our organizing challenge, sign up (here) on the event page. Once you are signed up, join the Home Organization 101 group page on Facebook (HERE). On this page, you can ask questions, post pictures, and support each other during this 14 week process.
Week 9 – THE DINING ROOM
The dining room is where the family should end their day… sharing how their day went, making memories! Right? I bet a lot of you cannot say that about YOUR dining room. It may be the “catch all” space for you. Or you might only use it for formal occasions. My dining room is used every day. We choose to eat dinner in there. We don’t save it for fancy dinners or holidays. We get some good use out of it. So we need it to be organized and functional. I hope my tips will help you to create a functional & organized dining room for your family to enjoy.
My dining room is “technically” not finished. I need to hang these picture frames up still.
I love storage of any kind. I picked up this vintage milk crate at a local antique store.
I love my vintage aprons & the mini chalkboard tags are a cute accent to the them.
Baskets of any kind are a good organization tool for the dining room. You can keep alot of stuff in them.
My husband and I made this chalkboard out of scratch! We used a thin board from Home Depot, painted it with chalkboard paint, mitered baseboard for the frame. Then I spray painted the frame oil rubbed bronze. I LOVE how it turned out. The size is 60×35″.
This dresser is perfect for all of the things we use in the dining room. This drawer is for “napkin” related items (disposable napkins, rings, cloth napkins, hand wipes).
This is our beverage drawer. We use these items often after dinner.
This drawer contains my “summer” linens, placemats, and disposable dishes.
Table cloths go into this drawer.
We use these placemats daily.
Disposable dishes are stored in here. I use these often for “pizza” nights, kids snacks, etc.
To recap, you can create organized drawers for the following:
1. Disposable dishes
2. Napkin related items
3. Place mats
4. Table Cloths
5. Beverage drawer
6. Seasonal linens & placemats
Where did I find my things?
Mini Chalkboards – Here
Dresser – Big Lots
Vintage Water caddy – Ross
Topiaries – Store in Greenville, SC
Chalkboard – Made it ourselves 🙂
Bay Leaf wreath – Target 4 years ago
Table runner – Target
Wire basket on dresser – Hobby Lobby
Wire baskets on rolling cart & table – Home Goods
Number signs – Local store
Table – World Market
Slipcover chairs – Ikea
Subway word art sign – Home Goods
Vintage rolling cart – World Market
Picture Frames – Dryads Dancing (online)
Drying rack – World Market
Curtain panels – Ikea
Curtain rod – World Market
THE PROCESS
Organizing the dining room is a pretty basic process. If you have a hutch or buffet, you can easily create a functional space. If you dont have one, you can use a dresser like I did. I could not find a buffet that I liked, so I purchased a bedroom dresser! I got mine at Big Lots for $499. You can reuse one that you already have. Paint it or keep it the same.
1. Take a picture of your space before you begin.
2. Clear out the space using these 4 bins (keep, donate, trash, other room). Place the bins in another room until you are ready to re-organize.
3. Once you have gone through everything, the room should be empty (besides the furniture). Give it a good cleaning! Scrub the floors, table, baseboards, buffet, etc.
4. Now you are ready to put back everything that belongs. Categorize like items (using the examples in my dresser pictures).
5. Decorate to make it “your style”.
6. Take “after” pictures and come back here to link up!
Organizing your dining room is very rewarding. Creating an inviting space for your family to come together every evening to share memories is definitely worth the the time and effort.
HAPPY ORGANIZING!
Our WEEK #9 sponsor is Tanja Koch from TCK Invites.
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If you would like to share your Dining Room pictures from your blog, link up now!
Tags: dining room, dining room organization, organize, our home
Blog, Decorating, Dining Room, Home Organization 101, Organize, our home, vintage decor Posted in
30 comments
30 comments on “Home Organization 101 – Week #9 “The Dining Room””
Where is your china, crystal, silver and entertaining pieces?
Barbara, We are “plain folk”… lol. I dont have crystal, silver, or anything fancy like that. All entertaining dishes are stored in my kitchen cabinets. We have a lot of cabinets. We dont have fancy china that we only use twice a year. We use our nice dishes every day. 🙂
So lovely, I love your large dining room!
The baskets are lovely and I adore the vintage aprons
Your dining room is beautiful! Ours is so small it holds only the table and chairs (new table coming next week!) but we use the shelves in the closet for placemats and hang the tablecloths in with the coats.
Looks great! I especially LOVE that rolling cart – you must have had it for a while because it’s not on their website.
Allison, its still on the website… and there is a 25% off coupon that just came out today. http://www.worldmarket.com/product/aiden-console-table.do?&from=fn
I love your dining room decor! You did a great job picking up vintage things to decorate! I saw rolling cart at World Market few weeks ago! I would love you show me how to shop vintage stuff for home decor!
I love your style! You did a beautiful job!
I love what you did with your dinning room …….
I love your style, what I would give to have my hardwoods running into my dining room! We don’t eat dinner there often because it has carpet…
I absolutely love your dining room! How do you control the dust – my house is always so dusty, no matter what I do?!
Cleaning lady once a week! Yes there is a lot of dust.
Ha-ha!! That’s what I need – a cleaning lady!!
Hiring a cleaning lady was the BEST thing I ever did for myself. I couldnt afford one for years but always wished that I had one. Now, I MAKE the time and money to have one! I highly suggest it.
I love it! You are so great! I only have an eat in kitchen, but when we build our dream house, it will have a formal dining room. 🙂 Where did you get your hobnail bowls? I love them!!
Samantha, They are from Home Goods. 🙂
Toni, how would you describe your style and decor? So far, I am loving every single room and how you decorate. It’s what I would like for my house, but I don’t know the term to describe it, if such a term exists. Thanks!
Its cottage style… You can pick up magazines from Target, etc… that show this type of decor. Another term would be farmhouse vintage. Im glad you like it! 🙂
We just added some cabinets from ikea to help organize our dinning room! You can see it at http://createbakecelebrate.blogspot.com/2012/08/create-dining-room-and-kitchen-storage.html
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Are we no longer able to link up? I am trying but nothing is popping up that will allow me to link!
http://fatcontrolfreak.blogspot.com/2012/10/organizing-101-dining-room.html
ITs showing up for me. Try again in a little while.
I am really impressed with your writing skills and also with
the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme
or did you customize it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one nowadays.
Its a paid theme which I designed and hired a developer to switch everything over for me. 🙂
Is “Ross” a store or man in your life. Referring to water caddy. Love it! Great challenge.
Its a store! 😉
I love your dining room. What is the brand and color of your wood floors?
Holy. moly. I love your dining room so much! I love every single piece of furniture and accessory! Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I am a big fan of your blog, so I was excited to see your comment! 🙂 -April Hoff
We have your same dining table & bench from world market except we have chairs on the other side. Don’t you just LOVE it? The rough finish is perfect, especially for a family with young children! I have three boys & I feel it has only gotten more beautiful over the years. I think your dining room is perfect exactly how it is! Light, airy & flowly! Not to stuffy or formal. Just started following your blog a few months ago & love it!