_________________________________________________________________________________________
Work in progress: Dining room
Aren't you loving Vanessa's “Work in progress” series? :-) It's so interesting to see the process behind the room makeovers.
My house seems to be a perpetual work in progress – which room to choose to write about! I decided to share my work-in-progress dining room with you because, well, it's been a work in progress for almost two years! Sometimes I wonder if it'll ever be finished, but at least it's getting close.
When we moved into our house in 2001, the dining room was an icky green. I painted the walls Greenbrier Beige with a Dove White wash on the upper walls, and the ceiling Monroe Bisque (all Benjamin Moore colours). The table and chairs are Gramercy Park from Lane. If I were buying dining room chairs now, I'd go with fully upholstered chairs. But this was around 2002, before I knew any better! (Don't worry, we removed the plastic and tags from the chairs!)
The room stayed pretty much like this till about three years ago. In 2007, I added a large mirror to the long wall. The following summer, hubby and I installed wainscoting on the bottom of the walls, below the chair rail. A sparkly chrome & crystal chandelier bought off Ebay replaced the not-so-attractive plastic & brass chandelier that came with the house.
At this point, I really got stuck. I didn't have a defined vision for the room, just a few ideas about what I wanted to do. But I was pretty sure I wanted it to be purple! I contemplated painting the ceiling purple and the walls white, like in this dining room:
Source: Decorati
I picked up some purple fabric samples for recovering the chairs and curtains, but nothing really turned my crank. And then I found it – the perfect sexy, cool & funky fabric. Check it out:Source: Style at Home
Seriously, how cool is that!? Samantha Pynn used a lavender faux ostrich leather to recover these chairs. Perfect! I ordered a couple of yards from InVu Drapery in Toronto and our chairs went from this:To this:
And as you can see, the faux leather inspired the wall colour – Ash Violet from Sherwin Willliams. And the ceiling colour... is a surprise! This is what it looked like before:
At the Interior Design Show last January, I found some gorgeous silver & lavender fabrics from Alendel Fabrics. When they became available a few months later, I picked up some samples. I love them all... how to choose?!
When we bought the DR set, we didn't buy the buffet. I've literally been looking for the perfect piece since 2002. I wanted a sideboard instead of a buffet & hutch because the room isn't all that big (11' x 16'), and the old hutch we had felt like it loomed over the room. I saw this mirrored dresser at HomeSense about a year ago and just had to have it. {The accessories and lamp are from HomeSense too}.
It's too small to work as a buffet, though, so its home is in front of the bow window {still working on accessorizing the top}. At this point, I came up with a list of criteria for the buffet – dark wood, curvy lines, room for storage, same height as the top of the chair rail, a touch of glam... I don't know how I found it, but look at what I came across on the Net last spring:
Sweet! It couldn't be more perfect! It's the Somerton Buffet from Cymax Stores. I love that it has both closed storage and open shelves for displaying pieces. And the criss-cross design on the doors {it's also on the top} echoes the backs of the chairs.
The mirror frame totally wasn't working with what's going on in the rest of the room. Inspired by a black lacquer framed mirror that I saw in The Gift Home and my love for layered mirrors, I did a little mirror makeover and ended up with this:
Every room needs artwork – for my dining room, I wanted colourful art with an old Hollywood theme. And I knew just who to go to – Fifi Flowers! I sent her some pictures that I liked, and she created a set of three 12” x 12” paintings for me. We worked together via e-mail to make them perfectly colourful and custom :-)
The latest addition to the dining room is curtains, but I'm not quite ready to show them to you yet. Remember, this is still a work in progress! I'll have it ready for its final reveal in January – I'm focussing on Christmas & Christmas decorating right now :-) I hope you'll stop by my blog in a few weeks to check out my completed dining room.
Thanks Vanessa for giving me the opportunity to share my dining makeover process with your readers :-)
Kelly
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks so much Kelly! I loved reading about your design process and what inspired you. The custom artwork is a brilliant idea. The wall colour is perfect and I’m dying to see the colour you painted your ceiling. I look forward to seeing the final reveal with the draperies!
0 comments:
Post a Comment