What are your thoughts on formal Dining Rooms…love them or leave them? Many people are finding a different use
for these rooms or are eliminating them all together. My personal opinion…I love them!
It’s not that it gets used very often but we did not have
one in our last house and I wish that we had. I love changing the décor in them and although we are not
elegant people, having one makes me feel like one day we will throw fancy
dinner parties! #yeahright
#agirlcandreamright
Also, I knew this would be one of MY spaces in the
house. Not that my other half
really cares too much about design but I generally give him options and get his
approval on major decisions. But
in here…I got free reign!!
Let’s start from the beginning. Here is the before…the Dining Room when we first bought the
house.
Where do I begin with all that is wrong in here? First, the flesh colored paint below
the chair rail and on the ceiling is just plain disgusting. Then there is the chandelier. Not only is it a metallic peach finish
with peach and cream swirled glass shades but it is entirely too small for the
space. And last but MOST certainly
not least is the maroon striped and damask print wallpaper. Don’t be jealous this isn’t on your
Dining Room walls!!! One
thing was for sure, it all HAD to go and fast!
Compared to the rest of our home I wanted this room to be
more dramatic and glamorous! The
color tones needed to be graphite, white, gold and polished chrome mixed with
mirrors and some natural elements.
The wallpaper was removed and we used Sherwin Williams
Gauntlet Gray for the paint on the walls and kept all of the ceilings and trim
a nice, crisp white. When it comes
to lighting I am obsessed with the look of two chandeliers over a dining table. So the awful peach chandelier was
replaced with two champagne gold lantern light fixtures.
The table was a gift from my in-laws that we had in our last
house but the chairs that went with it were brown leather parsons chairs. They didn’t exactly go with the new
décor so they were replaced them with these linen upholstered chairs. They are such a classic piece of furniture and will go with
everything!
Now for the wall décor. One wall has a framed family photo with a mirrored sconce on
either side that I spray-painted.
The back wall was a challenge as it is so large and I knew to fill the
space I would need something large, which generally means it’s going to be
expensive. And I didn’t have much
in the budget for that. So I
decided a DIY project was in order!
I ordered some 36x48 blank canvases and painted them. And I love how they turned out! Simple and understated but the metallic
gold paint adds a touch of glam to tie into the room.
Here is the Dining Room at this point. I was satisfied with it but not over
the moon excited about it.
So, over the last couple of months I have been working on
completing it. I added draperies
and a rug. What a difference some
softness and texture makes. Speaking
of draperies…I am in L-O-V-E with these!
I knew I wanted a print in here but because of the height, if I had done
the entire panel in a print it would have been overwhelming. So I opted to break it up and do a
solid fabric at the top of the panel and a band of the printed fabric at the
bottom. Cheetah print is a
pattern I am really into these days and this one happened to be in the perfect
colors!
The small little corner of the room was all that was
left. This is where I hung the updated mirror from Oliver’s
nursery. And below that is the bar
cart. You can see my previous post
about bar carts here. I chose to style it traditionally and I
think the detail and color really adds some pop to this otherwise plain and
boring corner.
So what do you think…before?
Or after?
Do you think our Dining Room went from drab to fab?
