Making a Dining Room out of a Tiny Space

If you’ve been following along lately you’ll remember that my brother recently bought his first house. We surprised him with a bedroom makeover while he was out of town and it was definitely the best surprise we’ve had on the channel. You can see his reaction both on the blog and in the video. But now that the bedroom is done I wanted to help give them a dining room space that’s cozy and perfect for entertaining. This time, I made my brother part of the project too. It’s always good to teach the little bro a few things from his big sis! Enjoy this transformation, there truly is no space too small for a big change.

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Want to see this build in action? You can watch my build video here (+ make sure to subscribe to my channel)!

Tools + Materials

Tools

Materials

Decor

1. Demo

The first thing that had to go in this room was the carpet. So I got started by tearing it out, we’ll be matching the floors throughout the rest of the house with the flooring my brother picked out for his bedroom.

Next I took out some shelving and the existing window treatments.

Demo finished up with spackling to smooth out any leftover holes and prep everything for paint.

2. Installing Flooring

Time to get Rob involved!

He finished pulling out the flooring in the dining room, living room and kitchen.

I showed Rob how to cut down the laminate flooring and install it. I love teaching other people how to do their home improvement projects, that’s why I love having my channel and blog so much! It was really cool to watch him crush it on this project. Honestly I let him work on the dining room and I worked on projects in other parts of the house. Spoiler alert: you’ll be getting a living room makeover here soon…

Flooring really makes such a difference. This room looks like it’s from a different house.

3. Painting

While I still had Rob we got some paint up on the walls.

Very happy with the color he chose.

4. Lighting, Trim & Window Treatments

Like in every great home project, it was time to remove the boob light, and replace it with this much more modern fixture. I was very excited to update the lighting in this house.

I did get Rob’s fiancé’s input on design too since she was moving into the house in a few days. They both wanted a cozy and modern feel which I was so ready for.

I nailed in quarter round to cover up any gaps along the edge of the floor.

I switched out the blinds for these bamboo shades instead.

5. Assemble Furniture

For this part of the project I had my brother Jordan and his wife Isabel offering some extra help. I love doing projects with my family, it is literally the best.

We got the softest rug ever for under the table.

I had to get creative with the dining set for this space because it’s so small, wait till you see what we got though. We also had to have a sibling styrofoam fight as we opened it up.

I am obsessed with this table, Jordan and I were able to assemble it in under an hour and as an added bonus it smelled really good (don’t judge me for this observation). I was also really surprised and happy to see that it was real walnut, not pine stained like walnut.

It was quite the challenge fitting a table and 4 chairs into this tiny room but we made it happen.

Jordan was happy to help me show how tight the space was when I added these storage cabinets. But this house is so small and really doesn’t have any storage so it was a non-negotiable for me, the cabinets were staying.

Jordan and I really hustled to get these cabinets hung up because Rob’s fiancé Marina was moving in the next day and we needed the dining room to be finished for them. This project had me so in my feels, Jordan is my baby brother and he used to work for me part time before he enlisted in the Air Force and it was just so special to work on this project for our brother Rob together.

Side note, I actually hung this bracket upside down at first and had to switch it. But after we got it switched around we got the cabinets finished in no time.

6. Final Touches

I hung some of their art work on the wall.

Then finished off the windows with these curtains.

It was time to set the table, I love this dishware set so much.

The Big Reveal

Seeing how happy Rob and Marina were was the best feeling ever!!! They were excited to see their artwork and they were very pumped about having some storage too.

Working on this project with my family was the best. Being a content creator can be kind of a lonely job, but working on this dining room with my family was fuel for my soul. Rob and Marina were so happy to have their new dining room, they even sent me a photo from their first dinner at their new table, it doesn’t get much better than that! This project really stretched my creativity to make a functional and stylized dining room in such a small space. Stay tuned for more projects friends, until then Happy DIYing!