If you are thinking of knocking down the wall between your kitchen and dining room, but are on the fence, let me be your deciding factor: Do it!
When we first moved into our home (around 2010), we had a small kitchen, laminate on the floors, warm Nutmeg paint on the walls, and a “reserved for holidays” dining room with carpeting. The two rooms served us well for years. I never really even thought about knocking the wall down. Until one day I did, and then it was over. I was obsessed. The wall needed to come down.
I thought about hammering it down myself. I had friends do it, and it seemed like a fun DIY project. But we had vents and electric running through the wall, and at that point in my life, I was not confident enough to even consider something like this. (Who am I kidding, I still wouldn’t tackle vents or electric.) I also needed to confirm that the wall was not load bearing. (That needs to be your first step, too!!) I felt it was best leaving it to a professional, so we hired my volleyball friend (who happened to be a contractor) and his son (who happened to be an electrician).
Once the wall came down, my husband helped with the flooring. We chose laminate. We are hoping for hardwood floors someday, but at this time, we were trying for a more affordable option. We also liked that our dog, Oakley, couldn’t scratch the laminate. This was a painless project (for me at least.) I came home from a girls’ weekend trip, and the flooring was complete!!
We also needed to switch out our lighting. We originally had a small rustic chandelier in the kitchen and a larger chandelier in the dining room. The chandelier in the dining room had sentimental value (and I simply liked it more), so that was the one that I chose to stay. I switched the kitchen chandelier with a bronze flush mount light. They complemented each other perfectly! (Recessed lighting was added when we got our kitchen renovated to give us more light.)
One of the problems that needed to be solved was that in our original dining room, we had a half wall of paneling and a chair rail. I thought about removing it, but after some Google searching, I decided to make this my very first DIY project!
I found a very similar panel pattern at Home Depot and continued that into the dining room. You can’t tell at all that it’s different! I primed our existing paneling (using Gripper), sanded, and then painted it. (I used the same process as my “How to Paint Closet Doors” post. Click to read that post.) I painted the paneling Behr’s Cozy Cottage, and I continued Warm Nutmeg into the new dining room.
Since then, we have renovated our kitchen, adding new cabinets and a new configuration, and I changed the paint color again. (That is a story for another time.) I now have Behr’s Pearl White on the walls and Behr’s Calligraphy on the paneling.
original paneling
new paneling
After the paneling problem was solved, a small hiccup formed on our ceiling. You could still see a small ridge on the ceiling from where the wall used to be. Truly, no one but me would have been bothered by it, but I wanted to find a solution. I decided to stick with my rustic theme and add a wooden ceiling beam. I took the measurements to a local lumber company, and they made me a hollow wooden frame. Then, the fun began! I distressed the beam (using an ax and random tools around my house), sanded it, then stained the wood. (The full details on how I created my rustic wooden ceiling beam can be found on my “How to Create a Rustic Ceiling Beam” post. Click to read that post.)
Once it was finished, my contractor friend installed it, and voila! My kitchen project was complete! I loved it then, and I still love it now. So there you have it. If you are thinking about knocking down the wall between your kitchen and dining room – DO IT! Taking our wall down created an entirely different space for us!
