Our dining room is complete–for now. There are a few more details to finish, but, for the most part, it’s complete. It is everything I wanted it to be. It’s formal and elegant. Lately, design trends have seems much more casual. Houses have moved away from having formal living and dining rooms. Call me old-fashioned, but I really like having “adult spaces”. I mean that I like having areas in my home to entertain adults without having toys and kid-friendly fabric everywhere. Why should I wait 25 years to have beautiful things? I’m thankful we have a home that provides entertaining areas that I can make my own.
I think the dining room table is one piece of furniture that should be classic and not trendy. In general, you buy one (maybe two) dining room tables in a lifetime. Therefore, find something traditional that won’t go out of style. I’m usually all about finding a “deal”, but, in this case, go for quality–even if that means spending more.
Dining chairs are a little different. They don’t have to be matchy-matchy. You can do something totally different on the wing-chairs. In my case, I decided to keep everything the same, but I love the look of mismatched dining chairs. Newsflash! Dining room chairs can be expensive! Even the cheaper one’s are pricey. You can replace chairs, so go for what you like. You can always have them reupholstered if the fabric goes out of style or they get dirty. I think this is one area to go with the trend.
Dining room rugs can be tricky. In general, an 8×10 will work in most dining rooms. When my table has its leaf in, it will extend past the rug. This is okay. I don’t leave the leaf in all the time. You want all the chair legs on the rug when they are pushed in. I do NOT like thick, heavy rugs under dining room tables. I don’t want to slide my chair out and be half on and half off a rug that’s an inch thick. It doesn’t make sense to me to spend a lot of money on a rug that’s going to be under an area where people are eating. I know rugs are outrageously expensive, but try to find one that’s on the low to moderate end of the spectrum for this room.
The curtains in our dining room are stunning. They are probably one of my most favorite things in our new home. They are silk-taffeta and look like an umpire-waist dress. My husband is sweet to let me have a few feminine pieces in our home. The top third is cream and the bottom two-thirds is gathered grey and cream silk. Because this is a bay window, I had to have a rod custom made. The rings are in a C-shape so I can still slide the curtains back and forth for privacy. This was important to me, and this was the only way to accomplish this problem. I know that the curtains are not hung directly below the crown-molding. This is the current trend. In general, I think this looks best. When we put the rod under the crown, something looked wrong. I decided to hang them right above the top of the window. They will be open most of the time and easier to open and close. I go back and forth about my decision, but I think I made the right one.
I still love my mirrored sideboard. It’s a very trendy piece, but I think it adds glitz and shine to the room. The chandelier also adds sparkle and shine.
Resources:
Rug from Feizy
Table and Chairs from Restoration Hardware
Buffet from zgallerie
Curtains from The Curtain Exchange
Art from Wisteria
Stacy Nance Interiors 