Evolution of Our Dining Room Decor
We bought our 100-year-old house a few years ago, and the previous owner was using the formal dining room as her office. Wanna know what's behind all those shelves? A big glorious window. Yep. We opened that puppy up STAT and reclaimed the space as a dining room. But, we don't entertain thaaat often so it sat..and sat..until FINALLY I got around to gussying the ol' girl up and we are now IN LOVE. And apparently fans of lavender. Who would have thought?!
This lavender dining room has come a loooooong way from when we bought our house!
The lovely BEFORE picture. Fine if you're not into windows and need lots of shelf space.
We opened up the window. Our theory is that this was the kitchen in the original house. Can you believe how bright and cheery it is with the window open?
Our first stab at decor. Gray walls and this old rug.
Next, we swapped out the rug for something with more color, and I found these Duncan Phyfe style chairs on eBay. And hung some old paintings from my grandmother's house.
Here, we got rid of the nautical paintings (they were lovely art, but not our style), swapped out the rug (again) for these clearance sale FLOR tiles and hung a thrifted pendant light.
And finally... the current lavender loveliness. SO MUCH BETTER. The lavender walls are the perfect complement to the Moroccan rug. DIY lined curtains and DIY curtain rods tie it all together. The table and chairs are unchanged, and a fun plate/mirror wall adds a little more interest to the back wall. That floral painting was a flea market find and I used some silver Rub 'n Buff to clean up the frame. (But keep reading because that painting's already been replaced...)
This ombre lavender file cabinet provides storage for napkins and extra silverware and napkin rings, etc.
I made this stencil art (words are Goodnight, Moon) out of plywood, stain and then some 1x2s.
This rhino was dark and scary, but the shiny white spray paint brings in a fanciful bit of fun (not for everyone, I know!).
The mirrors were chargers that I wired round mirrors onto.
Close up of the plates collected at thrift stores and flea markets.
Detail of the amazing fabric.
Remember the floral painting? Gone and replaced with this Camaroonian Juju hat. I'm obsessed.
All in all... better than the dark office of bookshelves!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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INCREDIBLE! I am so going to try and recreate a version of that plate/mirror wall. How did you hang them? Also, that rhino is everything.
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