Veronica Hughes: My favorite renovation EVER!

My heart is heavy today. It's been a rough few weeks for our country, hasn't it? I don't have the right words to express my heartache, so I'm not going to try other than to offer my sincere love and prayers to those affected by the shooting in Las Vegas this weekend. I wasn't going to post today, but writing is cathartic for me. I hope reading will be for you as well.

It's been six weeks since we moved out of our house, and I've been recapping some of my favorite spaces all in one spot. You can see our kitchen from start to finish here, the family room renovation here and the guest room makeover here. This one is probably my favorite project ever in our house and this post will be super helpful for those of you who are considering trying my DIY built ins. This is the project replicated the most by my readers (at least the one I from you the most) and I LOVE IT. I get emails about this project every week so this will be a good resource for all of us. ;)

I wish I could find the way back photos of this room because they are good stuff. Like I've said a million times -- I wouldn't do the same decor again but I loved it at the time. My style has changed a lot in ten years, as you can tell:

GoodNESS I. loved. that. light. Somebody in Indy is the proud owner now -- I still remember selling it online. Those red seat cushions? Lovingly covered by moi. As you can see, I had a slight obsession with the red and gold combo -- I even painted a shimmer paint over that gold ceiling. I mean, it glittered:

I later changed to these DIY drapes and I loved that red -- so dramatic!

Then my love of chocolate brown and white together started, as evidenced in our powder room at the time too. Pretty sure it took three coats:

One of the hardest projects I've ever done in nearly ten years of blogging? Reupholstering the backs of those chairs. Never...ever again. And I never say never.

I LOVED how dramatic this room was. I really loved decorating it for Christmas. That DIY centerpiece mirror/tray was one of my most popular projects for years:

If I still had a dining room with a fancier vibe I'd still be using that thing!

My love for this space changed a little after we had new floors put in -- the light carpet was horrible to eat on but it did add some contrast the room needed:

About that time I got wild hair...we hardly ever used this space (one to two times a year, at the max) and it started to really bug me. A whole room we weren't using! So I decided to go for it and rework it into a space we'd really use:

My Dad and I built these bookcases together and already have plans to build them again in the new house. :) I'll link to all of the steps at the bottom of this post!

I searched for the right lights for this project for months. I finally found what I wanted in the outdoor section of the hardware store. Don't be afraid to consider those!:

The next phase of the project was comfy chairs -- I waited till I found exactly what I wanted, and in the meantime put our old kitchen table out there:

This just goes to show you could do something like this in your own dining room and put your table back in. It looks so lovely, right?

Later I found the chairs for a steal on sale and grabbed two of them:

I really wanted to do four, but the room wasn't big enough. Two ended up being perfect!

Later on I finished up the room by adding a beaded chandelier, switching out a bigger rug from another room and simplifying the shelves a bit. I loved how it came together!:

dining room turned sitting room with built ins

wall of DIY bookcases using kitchen cabinets

I'm SO proud of this project. We did it for a fraction of the price of what we would have been charged by professionals. If I don't cover any of your questions with the links below be sure to let me know in the comments!

Here's a run down of all the how-to posts for the built ins: