Dining Room Before and After

My posting has been light lately because I've been working with my friend and colleague Donna Russell of ProVisions Interiors (here).
The project has been a foyer and remodel for an existing client. When we worked with them on the home originally, they were waiting to see whether they would inheirit some family pieces for the dining room, as well as which specific pieces, so we selected the lighting, the draperies, and painted the two rooms the same color as the rest of the open floor plan (Windsor Greige from Sherwin Williams, one of my favorite neutrals. The pluses: the rooms both have several windows and dark hardwood floors. The challanges: we found the dining room pieces included a huge buffet (it is still being refinished, but will go between the two windows opposite the dining room entrance), a small china/curio, 10 chairs, a huge table, and a small server. The home owner also wanted a small desk for her daughter, as she wants her computer use to be visible and there is really no other place downstairs for it to be. Furthermore, we wanted to keep the space from being too serious, since the homeowners are a young family.

We decided on large scale horizontal stripes in the dining room and on one wall in the foyer and the continuing wall down the hall that goes into the family room.

The foyer chandelier is dressed up with a small medallion painted to match its finish.

A pic of the dining room after with the draperies rehung with their bamboo shades. The artwork is an original painted by Donna and me and will hang over the buffet when it comes back from the refinisher.

For added drama, the ceiling gets a bronze finish in the dining room.

A trumeau we had custom made from a salvage door (a post on that later) adds interest in the foyer by the stairs. The peeling paint finish keeps it from being too formal.

A shot of the foyer with its center hall table. The pic doesn't really show it, but the striped wall was coated with a slight glaze and two coats of poly for high sheen.

Because the dining room is not large, the china had to go in the foyer. After the buffet returns, the stem wear will be moved into that. We rehung the curtains at the opposite sides of the window to make the wall seem larger.

A shot of the dining room showing the bronze ceiling, glossy striped walls and contemporary cream host and hostess chairs. The sculptural mirrors were previously in the living room.

We rehung the print horizontally to complement the stripes.