Project Reveal: New Traditional Dining Room
I have made it a priority this year to photograph my interior design work. I work with design clients all the time. Some are local and some are virtual. It’s tough to get photos of the virtual work, which is why I only share peeks into their style plans. Locals in the Long Island and NYC area are much easier to get photos of I just need to get my ducks in a row and make it happen!
A couple of weeks ago I photographed a dining room I finished a couple months back. The clients are very traditional in their decor, but they wanted to update their dining room while keeping the most of the main pieces they had.
Here is a shot of the before:
The round dining room table needed to stay. We were originally going to swap out the dining room chairs, but the clients liked the scale of them so, we gave them an updated look with new fabric and piping.
Before:
That quickly left the room and we made a big impact by papering the walls in
sisal wall covering from F.Schumacher We almost ended up going with the peacock colorway, but in the end we decided the indigo was more classic.
Another before shot:
Using large scale modern artwork also helped give this dining room a fresher take on traditional design.
We decided to go bold with the window panels in this room and let me tell you there is nothing better than getting to order 30 yards of chiang mai dragon. It’s a designer favorite and while I can normally get the wife on board with the pattern the husband is normally thrown off by the dragon heads. With this client I was lucky that the entire family loved it. They weren’t sure they wanted to go this bold, but I told them that’s what I was there to do and after living with a swatch for a couple of weeks they told me to pull the trigger on it!
We added an additional seating nook where the clients like to sit at with a glass of wine in the evening. Their daughter is very artistic and paints. The seating area is flanked by her artwork.
Here is the before of the seating area:
These lemongrass pillows were the perfect addition for the chairs. They picked up the shade of green from the curtains.
Not only was it great to photograph a finished project, but it was so nice to see my clients again. As a designer you get really close to the families you work with. I actually miss them once I’m done with a project. It was really nice to get see them all again and see what they were up to.
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My living room is one of the rooms that evolved drastically from when we first moved one. Originally I painted the walls chocolate brown and did accents of white, blue and orange. That lasted maybe 2 years.
Our dining room sat empty for months. Okay maybe it was empty for just a handful of weeks and then we couldn’t take it anymore and put in a folding table and plastic outdoor chairs, but in my mind that was still empty.
On the main floor of our house we have a Florida room. Being that it’s a Florida room it is a considered a 3 season room, because there is no heat in the room. The previous owners used it as an indoor patio with outdoor furniture and it looked like this when we moved in.
would have loved to seen the before photos too. Looks beautiful!
I just found them! I thought they were gone! Going to update post.
Wow, I love how you gave their traditional dining room new life with lighting etc. Chiang Mai is always a classic that looks great and bold. Great jolts of color with art, chairs, etc. nice job!
Hi there. Love your blog (and insta stories). Where did you find the art (the two faces)?
Thanks! The client’s daughter actually painted them.
Gorgeous!! Stunning work! And I love that you kept the table and chairs. It still feels very much updated but timeless.
Thanks, love! Means a lot coming from you!
Those curtains are really the show stopper in that room! I’ve never commented before, but have read you for YEARS…..just had to say how much I loved your work in this room.
Absolutely amazing. Truly, gorgeous. I wish I could hire you! And I wish c.m. dragon was in my budget!
This is gorgeous, Camila! I’m actually working on a dining room very similar to this at my grandparent’s farmhouse – it’s got navy and cream wainscoting – twinsie dining rooms! hahahaha! You did a beautiful job!