Reader Redress: Dining Room Update

This was my good friend Becki’s dining room two months ago.

With warm paprika walls and warm wood furniture, it was a monochromatic color scheme with little punch or contrast to focus the space. Becki felt the room needed something more in line with her personal tastes. She realized that she had tried to retrofit the style of this room to the style of her previous home’s dining room, but in the end compromised her own taste.

In a few weeks we transformed this room into something that feels right for Becki’s family and brings in modern design elements.

(The left wall is gray…not sure why it’s showing up pinkish here.)

Here are the drooly (!) before-and-shots, and then I’ll get to all the details that took this room from ho-hum-holiday-only use, to a sleek and modernized space perfect for weekly poker and high balls.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

This was a fun project because while I guided the process, Becki and her oh-so-handy hubby Ben did most of the work themselves. I love honest to goodness DIYers like them!

Okay, so what changed?

1. They painted the area below the chair rail white. This opened up the room to feel larger.

2. They installed new molding below the chair rail for architectural interest.

3. The old paprika color was repainted and restriped in Sherwin-Williams’ Moody Blue. It’s a blue/green/gray tone that works well with the adjacent rooms of the house but also provides calming contrast with the dark wood furniture in the dining room.

4. The formerly buttery yellow window wall was repainted Sherwin-Williams’ Amazing Gray, a sophisticated soft gray that adds to the sleek feeling of the updated room.

5. The china cabinet (made by Becki’s woodworking genius father) was moved from the long wall to the short wall to make the room feel larger.

6. The builder-standard chandelier was replaced by a contemporary gray linen drumshade chandelier with black and white cathedral photography imprinted on the inside of the shade. This piece brings a flavor of urban chic to the space and serves as the artistic focal point of the room. Because of that, the large wall feels sufficiently styled with just the chandelier as artwork.

7. The big splurge was the upgraded hardwood floor which was stripped from its original warm oak look and stained a gorgeous dark walnut.

Restyling the china cabinet was an especially fun part of the project, since we took the cabinet from a functional storage unit to a stylized space for Becki to display the pieces that hold special meaning for her.

Best of all, the only things purchased for this room were molding pieces, chandelier, two colors of paint and a few plate stands. Everything else was either repurposed from other rooms of the house or rearranged from the previous dining room decor. Now THAT’s thrifty re-decor.

It’s Sleek. Minimal. Modern. And best of all….It’s Becki!