Dining Room Makeover - African Style

Steve and I built our house 13 years ago and have not done a whole lot to our dining room over that time. Surprising because every other room in our house has seemed to change totally every 3-4 years or so. We loved our red, French Country room for a while, but over the last few months we discussed changing it up a bit. We came up with the idea to decorate it with an African theme since I went there in December 2010 and Steve went this past July. We also volunteer for Project Hope Worldwide, an organization that has built an orphanage and school in Lira, Uganda. Our whole family just really have a heart for Ugandans so we thought what better theme to choose than African? ;-)

I could kick myself for not taking a before pic of the room with furniture in it. These two will have to do...

Notice the "lovely" Sound of Music collector plates flanking the window. I am selling them so let me know if you're interested! ;-)

I digress! Here's a before pic with the furniture emptied out...

The color theme we came up with...

I actually enjoy the challenge of decorating on a small budget so I tried to recycle some of the things we had with new coats of paint and new fabrics. We decided to keep our dining room table since it was still in great condition and just paint it and recover our chair cushions. A huuuuuge THANK YOU goes out to my hubby, Steve, for doing all the large bulk painting and for painting our table and chairs. I have no idea how he puts up with me and my crazy ideas.

And here's the finished room...

I did a color wash on the upper part of the walls and a zebra stripe on the inside panels of the lower part of the wall. I decided the wall surrounding the zebra stripe was too plain so i did a dry-brushed effect with glaze to that, too.

This is Tracy, the inspiration for our room. You can read about Tracy's story here.

Oklahoma & Uganda time ;-)

Painting by our 9-year old, Abby

One of my favorite parts of the room are the canvases - which replaced my Sound of Music plates ;-)  I made them on ArtsCow.com and they are mostly photos Steve and I took on our trip to Uganda. Brings back such great memories!

This is Anna, one of the orphans we sponsor through Project Hope Worldwide...

Another pic of Tracy ;-)

My plate racks used to be shiny black so I spray painted them a rust color to match the room more...

This valance used to have a scalloped bottom and was covered in a red and white toile fabric. Steve cut off the scalloped edge for me then I recovered it & added the fringe...

After Steve painted our table turquoise, I gave it a dry-brush glaze in brown. I was a little nervous to try this effect but I think it turned out pretty good! ;-)

A little explanation on my table centerpiece...I received the mosaic candle holders from my in-laws for Christmas.They fit perfectly in our new room! The red runner is actually two wooden, square place mats laid side by side (found at Wal Mart for $4 each). Then I put leftover fabric from the chairs inside a picture frame. The place mats are also from WalMart - $2 each! Shhh! Don't tell!

I was born in Germany and my parents brought this globe back with them when we moved to the States. I've always loved it but especially now in this room...

A drawing of my girls by Gary Wing Portaits. He does amazing work!

And that's the finished room. A lot of work but a lot of fun, too! It's one of my favorite projects and now one of our favorite rooms in the house.