What Story Does Your Dining Room Tell?

My dining room did not always look like this and it still doesn’t always look like this. In order to get this picture I had to do a few things. I had just finished feeding our sweet little 6 month old in his high-chair. I put him in his swing and moved the high-chair into the living room. I cleaned off the dirty bibs, the dust from the chandelier and wiped down the table. It snowed a lot here and the natural light bouncing off the snow was perfect for a photo-op. Now picture me trying to get a picture of our dining room to capture my vision for this room while our baby is swinging in and out of the shot. I had to keep running around and making him laugh in between each picture I took.

The reason why I wanted this picture to be perfect is because I wanted it to tell our story. This space is so much more than a dining room. It’s the place where we fed our baby his first taste of applesauce, it’s the room where our family gathers, it’s the table where we eat our meals (when we don’t eat on our couch in the living room) and talk about our day. It’s going to be the room where our children will play with their Legos and Play-Doh and eventually do their homework in. So you can imagine how difficult it is to take a picture of this space in our home and have it tell you the story of what it has been to us, what it is now, and what it will become. So the next time you look at your dining room think about the story it’s telling you.

Here are the before and after pictures:

I used my inspiration piece (the painting from my previous post) to dictate what colors we would use for this space. We painted Benjamin Moore’s Pale Oak throughout the main floor and second floor. I call it “greige” because it’s a nice blend of grey and beige and it works perfectly with the blues, greys, beiges and whites that I wanted for our home. I decided on a modern take on the traditional romantic look and choose pieces from the Ethan Allen Maison Collection. Each piece was customized to the fabric and finish that I envisioned for the dining room. I love that these pieces are simple yet have their own unique details that make them stand out and are not too ornate. I knew that because we had dark chocolate floors that we should lighten up the room with a cirrus white finish on the Margaux Oval Side Chairs and choose a durable textured fabric (Baden Grade G) for the seats that would blend the mushroom with white glaze finish on the Avery Extension Table. We choose to keep a leaf in the table all the time even though it’s just the three of us because we have the space and it makes for a “grand” dining experience when family comes over for Friday night pizza.