Gallery Of My Work Faith, Family, & HomeWhen we bought our San Francisco flat last year it was my first time ever having a dining room. I immediately started dreaming of the dinner parties I was going to throw that I never could because of the tiny apartments we always lived in. The bedrooms and kitchen took priority but this spring we started working on the dining room. Click through below to see the before and after. The first decision was should we paint the beautiful wood moulding? This was a tough decision for me because I’m prone to paint every room white because of how it reflects all the light. But the dark wood was so beautiful! My least favorite part of owning an old home is this self-imposed pressure and burden to try to maintain and preserve the original look. A few months ago I realized that we were not using the room. It was dark like a cave and no one ever wanted to spend time in there. Meanwhile the guest bedroom (also at the back of the house) got amazing light and we would end up lounging or watching movies in there just because the light was so good.
That realization made the decision a lot easier and finally we took the plunge. We considered doing it ourselves but since I wanted the paint job perfect we hired some painters (who we LOVED!-email me if you are in San Francisco and need a good painter) they spent five days just on this one room, sanding and painting and sanding and painting. For the paint we used Valspar’s new Reserve Paint in Swiss Coffee from Lowe’s. The wood was a semigloss finish and the wall was an eggshell finish. The painter commented on the quality of the paint! When we saw the finished room for the first time it was a completely different space. It is crazy how much time we spend in that room now. Paint makes such a difference! (Before picture is below.) Once the paint was in it was time to decorate. I feel like the space is still a work in progress but here is a peek of where we are at. Here are some of the inspiration photos I was inspired by (both from Domino Magazine.) When I was thinking about how we would use this room I realized we eat most of our day-to-day meals in the kitchen.
It would be a shame to only use the room for dining so I wanted to make it dual purpose. Like a dining and project room. My friend Erik suggested I have a custom window seat built with storage. I love that idea. The kids can do art projects or homework on the big giant table. We have a really great view from the back of the house so a window seat will be perfect. I bought a simple wooden bench as a placeholder until we have a woodworker in to make one. I find I usually take a long time to decorate my house. I like to find the perfect pieces and I feel like there is no way to do that (even if you have unlimited funds) unless you take your time. So I tend to use the “placeholder” technique a lot. For example I first bought a vintage French table off Craigslist but it looked small in the room. Then I spent forever looking for the perfect large oval table like the one pictured above but couldn’t find one I was happy with. Meanwhile we needed a dining room table, so I bought this IKEA one off Craigslist as a placeholder until I find what I really want.
(I can sell it used for the same price I bought it.) For the chairs I’ve started collecting some vintage Bertoia’s (I love the industrial look of them) but we’re using the Eames chairs from Paul’s studio until I have enough for the whole table. The art wall was inspired by the photo above. I bought a few pieces but most of them I already owned and I just reframed them. We bought a Mat Cutting Kit a few years back and use it like crazy. It’s paid for itself ten times over. I highly recommend one if you are doing a big gallery wall like this. The rug is a Moroccan rug. I like that it is neutral with little touches of color. I know it’s not ideal to put a rug under the dining table. I would prefer not to have a rug at all but we are obligated to have a certain part of our floors covered in rugs for our neighbor’s sake. Since we will use this room as a project space more than a day-to-day eating space I’m not too worried about the rug. This post is Sponsored by Lowe’s.
All opinions are my own. photos by Paul Ferney for Oh Happy DayNow that I’ve put the finishing touches on the dining room, I’m finally ready for the big reveal of the finished product! It’s a great feeling to be able to show you a completed room after chipping away at the space for months. I’m going to be a bit of a rebel again. Just like when I shared the before and after reveal of my family room, I’m going against the “blogging rules” and showing you the not-so-great before’s first, instead of a beauty shot. This is the dining room as it looked on the day that we first looked at the house. The owner had the room decorated in a very traditional style, with dark trim and heavy dark furniture. This shot is taken looking back toward the doorways to the kitchen and office. Good grief, it’s hard for me to even remember the room looking like this. And this is how the room looked before we started the makeover. At this point we had removed the wallpaper, repainted the trim and walls, replaced the chandelier and refinished the hardwood floors.
This is how the room looked for about 18 months, while we finished up the kitchen, breakfast area, laundry room, screen porch and family room. And, here’s how the room looks today. We completely remodeled this house when we bought it, but this is one of the rooms that, thankfully, only needed cosmetic changes. The super fast and easy planked wall was one of the very first makeover projects that we tackled and boy, what a difference it makes in the room. It says instant farmhouse to me! Click HERE to read all about how we created this planked wall in one afternoon. Maybe you remember my post about the diy Fixer Upper style hanging lanterns that I made for either side of the sideboard. Well, I knew that I would have fun changing up what is displayed in those baskets beneath the lanterns. I replaced what I originally had in the baskets with a couple of plates and just one vase with greenery. In case you missed it, click HERE to read the step by step tutorial.
I’m still in love with the large wall of botanical art that I added to the wall beside the door going into the kitchen. I think that it adds a lot of life to the room and fits in well with any greenery that I have in here. You can read all about how I created all of the art for only $75 by clicking HERE. I decided to simplify the centerpiece on the table and replaced the large lantern and topiaries that were on it with my doughbowl filled with all sorts of summery goodies. We’ll take a closer look at that on another day. One of the more dramatic changes to the room took place on the wall opposite the sideboard. I had agonized so much about what to do with the little cherry chest that used to live under this mirror, but it finally occurred to me that my already-gray chest, that was in the foyer, would be perfect in here. And then – it was pretty much a no brainer when Pookie asked me what I wanted for my birthday…to recover our old office chairs! I used two euro shams from Ikea to make the lumbar pillows for each chair.
I love their pattern mixed with the buffalo check. Because of the additional bit of light that it adds to this sometimes dark room, I decided to keep the mirror above the chest instead of replacing it with a chalkboard. The newly painted mirror blends wonderfully with the rest of the room now. Plus, I really like the way that it reflects the sideboard vignette on the other side of the room. And btw – I get asked about these shutters a lot. They actually aren’t shutters at all, but are two parts of an old pair of bi-fold doors that I cut down. They’re spray painted with Rustoleum’s Anodized Bronze and I attached two D ring hangers to back of each one to hang them on the wall. I was very afraid of doing two things when it came to the makeover of this room. One was whether or not I would be totally wasting my money and regret adding a rug to this room. I don’t believe I would love the final result nearly as much if I had opted not to take a chance! The rug is great quality and was a super deal for such a large one – under $300 for a 9′ x 12′.