Hello friends! It’s been a few weeks since I have posted on the blog, things have been a little crazier than usual around here…but today I am excited to share a client reveal post with you! A big thank you to my client, Dawn, for letting me share her Dining Room makeover with you guys!
Before
Dawn reached out to me in the Fall because she wanted to give her Dining Room an overhaul but wasn’t quite sure where to start. The issue for Dawn was that she had been using a family antique dining room furniture set for years. While this set held sentimental value, it did not match the style of her home or her other furniture.
Dawn’s home is a craftsman style and her other furniture and decor is traditional meets contemporary – very modern farmhouse with comfy tufted couches and rustic/vintage wooden pieces. The existing dining room set was dark and ornate, and very “heavy” feeling. Luckily Dawn was able to relocate all of the existing furniture pieces to another family and we were able to start fresh.
In our first meeting, we talked about the front Living and Dining rooms feeling a bit dark. Dawn lives on a street with lots of tall, established trees which is wonderful for many reasons, but causes a lack of natural light in the front of the house. Her goal was for the Dining Room to feel light, bright and contemporary.
The first design decision we made was to give the walls a coat of fresh, off-white paint to brighten things up a little. We went with Benjamin Moore – Chantilly Lace.
Her painter was able to knock out this job right away, and both of us were so pleased at what a huge difference just the paint alone made! Then it was time for the fun part, picking some new furniture! Whenever I get to this step with my clients, we discuss two important items – functionality of the space and budget.
Functionality
Dawn has teenage twin daughters and she said they often like to do homework in this area, so we kept that in mind with table selection. With regards to seating, Dawn wanted to be able to comfortably seat 6 for when they are entertaining or hosting holiday dinners.
Budget
When we initially met and discussed budget, Dawn mentioned that she wanted to keep things as reasonable as possible. Design on dime is my specialty and I am very comfortable mixing high with low and sourcing affordable furniture and decor.
The Reveal
It didn’t take us very long to select the new items for this space, and here is how Dawn’s Dining Room looks now…
How about this gorgeous table and chairs? We also added a matching sideboard for additional storage…
The Details
We ordered this acacia wood table, sideboard and the 6 upholstered dining chairs from Structube. I still can’t get over what a good deal these pieces are. I will link all the sources at the end of the post in case you want to know the specifics. I love the way the chairs look with the table, and they are crazy comfortable…I am having chair envy and am so tempted to buy these for my own dining room!
The table is rustic and warm with clean and simple modern lines, just what we were looking for! There are two different size options with this table, and we went for the biggest one.
Dawn and I both agreed that the matching sideboard was a no-brainer…it offers extra storage and also a surface to rest things on when you are entertaining guests. I had fun styling the top of it, and I knew that two large lamps would be perfect on either side.
And speaking of styling, I found most of the accessories and decor at Pier 1, which sadly just announced last week that they are closing all of their Canadian Stores….noooooo! I found so many beautiful items when I went shopping there, it’s such a shame they are closing. I knew that Dawn loved the color blue, and when I spotted these lamps, I knew they were perfect:
The next item that I selected were these pretty napkins:
From there I selected a table runner and some placemats that were coordinating solid blue colors.
I bought a few blue glass hurricane vases and then a beautiful white bowl for the sideboard. I had some lemons leftover from the photo shoot at my house, and I love the bright burst of yellow with the other blue accents.
I also purchased these little flower taper holders from Structube as I wanted to incorporate a touch of green.
I had this gorgeous arrangement of hydrangeas from the photo shoot at my own house the day before I photographed Dawn’s Dining Room, and I couldn’t resist putting them in the middle of the table.
When Dawn saw all of the accessories I bought, she loved everything and said that I totally nailed her style. That was the best compliment ever, because that is my main goal when decorating a space.
One thing missing from the room is wall decor, and there is a reason the walls were empty on the day of our install and photo shoot. Dawn and I fell in love with this set of 3 abstract art pieces from Urban Barn.
They were the perfect size and scale for the room, and when I went to purchase them…they were unavailable until March…this was back in November, and waiting that long didn’t seem like a good option. My contact at Urban Barn started calling around to other stores to see if anyone had a set available, and the only option was the Nanaimo location on Vancouver Island. To many that would be a no-deal, but we were heading to Vancouver Island for the Christmas holidays and we were able to pick this up on our way back home. I’m not going to lie, there was a tense moment when it seemed like the 3 art pieces weren’t going to fit in the car-we were pretty loaded down with 3 kids and 2 dogs – but fit they did, with about half an inch to spare!
Sadly, this story does not have a happy ending though, because when we unwrapped the artwork at Dawn’s house the day I came to install everything and take photos, the frames were scratched…can you believe it? I don’t understand why, but the 3 frames were stacked on top of each other with nothing in between for protection , and then shoved into a box, so the middle frame was badly scratched and I had to return the set to the store.
As a plan B, I suggested these prints from Etsy, and Dawn is going to have them printed and frame them in these frames. Here is a screen shot of the prints…beautiful indigo colored botanicals…
Sources
I put together a mood board with the items we used in this room makeover, and below it, I will include sources.
If you like the look of this moodboard, be sure to pin it for future inspiration!
Furniture:
Rug – the existing rug was one the client had, but this is what I would have recommended if she wanted a new one
Accessories:
Walls:
Once again, a big thank you to Dawn for letting me photograph and share her Dining Room. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them for us below!
If you are interested in reading more Client Reveal Posts, check these out:
