Dining room decor from scratch - wish list?

[Susie]

After just getting our DR decorated in our new house (lol), we've decided that it just isn't big enough, so we're going to swap the LR and the DR.  

The current DR is 12' x 12'.  The future DR, which we're currently using as an office, is 13' 4" x 16'.  Both open to both the kitchen and foyer, and both have new hardwood floors that are continuous with the foyer.  They're on opposite sides of our center hall colonial, both front facing.  The extra square footage in the now-office feels like a waste, and the dining room feels tight, so it seems to make sense.  

Before we make the swap, we need to have our electrician run the wiring for a chandelier in the middle of the future DR.  Currently the wall switch controls an outlet.  Beyond that... I need to completely start from scratch on my wish list/decorating.  I'm pretty sure we're just going to leave the curtains in the smaller room where they are (the room was painted to match), and we'll start fresh in the new DR.  

We haven't done anything toward decorating the now-office, future-DR since we moved in, so it's a good time to do this.  The future DR has new floors, fresh white ceiling paint, and is ready for wall paint, new window treatments, lighting, and an area rug.  The only static items are the cherry furniture.  This isn't a project I had necessarily planned on, and I both want to have a little fun with it, and get it done reasonably promptly.

I think the things I need right away are to choose:

- a chandelier for the new DR
- a flush/semi-flush light for the office
- decide whether I want any sconces in the DR while the electrician is here
- area rug
- window treatments
- large scale art of some kind

Longer term, crown molding, wainscoting, and other options are probably in the plan, but those can be added later.  

What would you want in a dining room if you were starting from scratch?  Any ideas for me?

I have wanted this chandelier for about a year, and grudgingly decided a year ago that the DR in our old house wasn't big enough.

It's only about 3.5" wider and 4" taller than what is in the "old DR" now (it is 25.5" W x 28" H), so I think we can do it in the new DR.  I think that is as far as I've gotten!

[Deleted]

Love that chandelier, great choice!

Are the chairs with your dining set upholstered at all? Wondering if that needs to be taken in to consideration at all when thinking about colors. Like, my decorating style leans towards MCM so for pops of color I like oranges and blues/teals. I like to keep the wall color somewhat neutral so tend towards greys.

[Susie]

Nov 8, 2021 13:25:08 GMT -5 @sameoldstory said:

Love that chandelier, great choice!

Are the chairs with your dining set upholstered at all? Wondering if that needs to be taken in to consideration at all when thinking about colors. Like, my decorating style leans towards MCM so for pops of color I like oranges and blues/teals. I like to keep the wall color somewhat neutral so tend towards greys.

The current chairs are upholstered, but are honestly kind of a ragtag mismatched bunch of hand me downs that I plan to replace as soon as I can figure what I want and from where.  So they don't need to be accounted for.

I do have pretty traditional cherry furniture that needs to be taken into consideration.  The mirrors and sideboard were my parents', and my dad made the shaker style table.  The piano was my grandmother's, and will move into the new DR.







Originally I was going to move the curtains and wedding photo with the furniture to the new dining room, but we've since decided to leave them where they are, in the room we painted specifically to go with them.  We wanted to be free to pick a paint color for the dining room that goes with new curtains/rug rather than being constrained to one or two old elements.  But now I'm overwhelmed by the lack of limitations!  At least color, if not style.

[bhnumbers]

I'm *almost* starting from scratch with my dining room. I have a mahogany table that I inherited from my grandparents and I've ordered new chairs and an upholstered banquette for seating. I also already have a chandelier that I love, but we will be wallpapering the room. We picked out the rug, but need some artwork, still working on that. I am also ordering a bar cabinet that will be replacing a more traditional china cabinet.

Are you planning on getting a rug? That could be a fun way to add some more color and pull things together.

[devonpow]

I always wish I had electricians do more - and then I never want to bring them back just for a small project. So if you are having the electrician come I would definitely think over what you want for lighting etc. You mentioned getting new artwork - what about art spotlights in the ceiling? I love ours. We have a chandelier, Sconces, and ceiling art lights in our dining room - all on dimmers - and it’s wonderful having so many lighting options and being able to adjust for dinners, parties, or when I’m doing a puzzle in there

Also I’m always into extra outlets I wish we had another outlet by our buffet for plugging in crock pots etc for big gatherings. Things like that.

[devonpow]

Here’s the lighting in our dining room - we don’t usually have all 3 on at once but do different combos/use dimmers etc. We really love the art spotlights - we have them all over the house and they really help show off the pieces

[hbomdiggity]

For something like this, I’d be willing to throw $100 or so on an online design service.

[Susie]

bhnumbers, yes to a rug.  Probably Ruggable or similar, so it is washable.  My kids are 2 and almost-6, so neatness isn't our specialty!

devonpow, I love yours!  and yes, the lighting you're describing is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of.  We will probably mostly use the chandelier when we're actually dining in there, but I foresee the room also being used for puzzles, games, projects, that sort of thing, and having more light is great for that.  

I also totally agree about the electrician thing.  Fortunately I feel like I kind of get 2 bites at the apple.  We're going to have him come once this winter for a list of stuff we know we want done on the interior, and then he's coming back in ~June to do install when our home backup generator comes in (we're on a waitlist).  So if there's something I rue forgetting, I can probably tack it on in the summer.  That is probably good because I'm struggling a little with placement of furniture/art in the room.

I like this as a general paint scheme, but I don't want to pick the exact shade of blue/green until I know what else is going in the room.

[devonpow]

Nov 10, 2021 10:17:26 GMT -5 Susie said:

bhnumbers, yes to a rug.  Probably Ruggable or similar, so it is washable.  My kids are 2 and almost-6, so neatness isn't our specialty!

devonpow, I love yours!  and yes, the lighting you're describing is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of.  We will probably mostly use the chandelier when we're actually dining in there, but I foresee the room also being used for puzzles, games, projects, that sort of thing, and having more light is great for that.  

I also totally agree about the electrician thing.  Fortunately I feel like I kind of get 2 bites at the apple.  We're going to have him come once this winter for a list of stuff we know we want done on the interior, and then he's coming back in ~June to do install when our home backup generator comes in (we're on a waitlist).  So if there's something I rue forgetting, I can probably tack it on in the summer.  That is probably good because I'm struggling a little with placement of furniture/art in the room.

I like this as a general paint scheme, but I don't want to pick the exact shade of blue/green until I know what else is going in the room.

love that color! It looks very similar to my office - we used Oval Room Blue by Farrow and Ball

[Susie]

The one in the PIP is Farrow & Ball, De Nimes.

[kitty]

We are (very slowly and painfully) working on a similar project. We switched our dining room to the unused formal living room so that we could use the old, smaller dining room as an office/homework room. We were given a table and so far have purchased chairs and an upholstered bench to go around the table and a rug. We’ve had a lot of trouble finding a sideboard and China cabinet that we like but that is largely because we have weird size limits due to a fireplace.

I had been planning to get a really cheap indoor/outdoor carpet but I ended up needing an 8x11 vs an 8x10 to keep the head chairs from teetering on the edge so this limited my selection and I ended up having by to raise my budget a bit to find something I liked in the less common size.

We went with bench/banquette seating on one side because I’d found myself liking the less matchy-matchy looks that are popular these days. The chairs on the other side and at the head of the table are all the same. I think you can get a similar feel by choosing different head chairs vs side chairs.

Once we finally figure out the storage furniture issue, if it feels like there is enough space, I may get a small bar cart which I think could come in handy for entertaining.

We still need to hire an electrician for the lighting but have a plan of two oversized pendants over the table and then some recessed lights along the edge of the room near the fireplace, where the sideboard and display cabinet will eventually go. We are still debating whether these lights should be directed toward the wall or not but dimmers are a must.

I did end up trying to use Havenly in the spring but it was a bust and I ended up asking for a refund. I think I just got a bad designer. The biggest problem was that she basically just copies and pastes furniture from Wayfair/Birchlane which is very trendy, gray toned etc. I was looking for something that would have a more classic (but not super formal or ornate) look and she seemed to get frustrated I wasn’t happy with a few rounds of her selections. At that point, she basically checked out and just started picking random things that didn’t even fit within the dimensions I had. They did offer to switch me to a different designer but at that point I had already gone ahead and ordered the bench and chairs that I had found on my own and felt like it wasn’t worth the $ to have someone basically pick out two pieces of furniture and a pendant. But the fact that I still haven’t found anything to complete my vision possibly means I made the wrong decision haha!

[boiler717]

I like to start with a rug or drapes so I’d pick those first and go from there. I like the chandelier! I just ordered this rug for our living room and I could see it working with your color scheme:

www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Safavieh-Antiquity-Traditional-Handmade-Dark-Blue-Multi-Wool-Rug-8-X-10/13295323/product.html

[Susie]

I pulled the trigger on ordering the chandelier this morning!  I've now wanted it through 2 houses, and for over a year, plus it has an 8+ week lead time.  Time to just buy it.

Too bad that doesn't help with any of the other decisions, lol!

[memenee]

I love home decor stuff and people are always complimenting me on my home. “You have such great taste!” “Come decorate my home!” The truth is I have no decorating skills. I love Pinterest, make a board for each room in my house, throw all my likes/ideas in there and then copy and steal everyone else’s ideas. Do you have any inspiration pics for your DR? I really find that helpful.

[Susie]

We decided on a rug, and it finally arrived from Ruggable.  Now working on paint colors.  I like the rug, but it's more blue/less green than I expected.  

I am thinking maybe SW Moody Blue, which is the 5th on the chip that is straight out of the fan deck.

The left most chip, 2nd down, is SW Worldly Gray, which is what all the adjoining spaces will be.



So far it seems to pass a key test:

[darby]

I love your rug & love Moody Blue. I think that’s an excellent choice & can’t wait to see your finished room!!

[libbygrl109]

I like the Moody Blue with the rug.

The small rug we got from Ruggable was also approved as soon as it came out of the box. Says a lot for the brand, I guess 😄.

[Susie]

Progress is slow, but it’s coming!

Unfortunately delivery of the chandelier that I ordered in November, is now pushed out to July.  So we're going to hang the random light we took down from the kitchen just as a placeholder.  That's supposed to go up this week.  The walls are painted, the baseboards are re-installed, and the furniture is swapped, which is no minor task with the piano.  

We're thinking we're going to hang H's guitar on the wall, probably to the left of the piano, and set up a spot in that corner for him to play.  I am not sure what I want to do for window treatments, and I'm shopping for new dining chairs.  Eventually we'll do crown molding, chair rail, wainscoting, etc., but that's probably going to be a 2nd round of work.  Trying to get most of the house through a first round, first.

ETA:  It may not look like much, but this was the same room/angle from the listing photo one year ago:

[simpsongal]

Really coming together! Colors coordinating beautifully too. I like the use of space music room + dining.

[purplepenguin7]

I love it! The rug looks beautiful with the paint color. It looks so inviting. Also wow, the before picture is a huge constrast. Looks so much better with your vision.

[ellipses84]

It’s looking great so far! Your instincts are right on for what I would suggest. I like the idea of wainscot in the future. The chandelier is lovely but won’t provide a ton of light so having recessed fixtures on the perimeter that can direct light towards the table will help.

[mrsukyankee]

I love the paint colour and the idea of the guitar corner. It's coming along really nicely.

[lust2hart]

I love Moody Blue so much. It looks beautiful with that rug.

[libbygrl109]

I love the combo of your wall color with the floor and rug. So stunning.