My dining room was one of the first rooms I revealed in our home – just over 3 years ago (read it here)! It’s undergone quite a few changes since then – almost all of the furniture has changed. You can really see a big shift in the overall look (and my photography skills lol) in the photos below. However, really none of the structural or base level design elements have changed. I thought today I would take a look back at what I would do differently now in this room if I was starting over!
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1. Walls
We have wainscoting in the dining room up to 52″ high (10 ft ceilings) and then Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray paint above. At the time that we built the house, so four years ago, it was approximately $600 extra to make the wainscoting higher, up to 2/3 of the room height. I decided not to spend the extra money, but in retrospect, I really love the look of the taller trim detail.
The paint color is actually one of my most asked questions on Instagram, and I do love the SW Dorian Gray color (I actually also suggested it for a whole exterior paint update in this post), but now I like the idea of doing something a little bit more dramatic over the wainscoting – either a deeper color or wallpaper.
I love love love the combination in the dining room below. Taller, white wainscoting, with a costal farmhouse printed wallpaper design. You can see this whole house tour here.
I actually ordered a sample of this wallpaper and am considering putting it in my playroom, right across from the dining room!
2. Windows
We have plantation shutters with 4″ louvers on every single window in our house (some are cafe shutters vs whole shutters). While I love the classic southern style of the plantation shutters and the functionality of them – great for blocking light and super easy to open and close – at this point, I would prefer a softer, more natural look to bring in more texture.
I also wish we had thought a little bit more about the placement of our windows – our front windows face a small lake and we almost never full open the shutters. We open the louvers every day but we don’t swing the doors open, so we never get a full view of the lake. I would prefer to have woven shades that would let in more light and a larger scale view out the window when open. We also would have considered doing a three-window picture window if that had even remotely crossed our minds when we approved our floor plan.
I also go back and forth on doing curtains in this space! What do you think about curtains here??
3. Rug
I have a 9×12 jute rug in this room and I absolutely love the look of it. However, it has a pretty high pile and is pretty difficult to clean/vacuum, which isn’t a huge concern because we don’t use the room very often. If I was going to pick a new rug, I would definitely do something with the jute look but lower pile and more durable. 9×12 rugs of a natural material aren’t cheap! I love the jute harlequin trellis rug in my first inspo mood board below!
4. Wall Art
I still have one set of word art signs in this room….cringe. I’ve struggled with what to do with this wall because it is really the first thing you see in our house and the bar cart doesn’t take up the whole wall / isn’t centered in order to leave enough walking space around the table. I *think* I might try moving my wall baskets from my entryway to this wall and seeing how they fill the space!
5. Ceiling
I LOVE a good ceiling detail in a dining room. The combination of the shiplap and beams in the dining room below is to die for! You can see this whole house tour here.
I definitely would have considered a ceiling treatment in our dining room but we have tongue and groove shiplap on the ceiling in our foyer, which is completely open to the dining room. So, it would have been way too much going on to add a ceiling treatment in both areas. I think in our space I prefer the foyer ceiling detail, but I probably would have taken more time to think through it knowing what I do now!
Two Dining Room Inspiration Mood Boards
Yesterday, on Instagram/Facebook, I shared two other dining room mood boards that I put together – totally different style from these but same color palette! I put the below mood boards together to show some of the design elements I talked about above with some of the furniture I currently have!
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