Fall 2020 One Room Challenge, The Reveal
REBECCA McALPIN Photographer
VESTIGE HOME Stylist
Well, here we are friends, the finish line, the big reveal of the dining room that we’ve been working on the past seven weeks!
If you’re joining us for the first time and want to see where we started and all of the project progress, you can check it out in the previous posts here -
Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four | Week Five
Ok, first things first, we’re a week-and-a-half behind the original six week deadline. We delayed our final reveal since we were waiting on the custom stand for the butterfly vitrine to arrive from California. But, it was definitely worth the wait to get everything just perfect for the reveal!
It feels a bit surreal to have this space complete after more than a year of planning (I had hoped to complete it last fall) and in a pandemic no less! As we approach what will certainly be a different holiday season, this space won’t be filled with friends and family, but it will be no less enjoyed by Adam and me. If you remember from my original design statement and mood board my goal in this room was to create a soft and textural layered space carefully juxtaposed with modern and traditional elements that encourages gatherings. So let’s dig in and see how it all came together.
This is the view that you see as you come into the dining room from living room. I love that this shot really captures so many of the special elements we added to this space. The panel molding and chair rail (painted in Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter) adds structure to the room and gives the perfect grounding element for the custom mural. I must say, this mural has my heart! We are so, so thrilled with how local artist, Carla Weeks knocked this out of the part….if you look closely throughout the room you can see how thoughtfully she laid out the overall design so that the individual elements aligned with various parts of the room in interesting ways. Adam and I eat in here for almost every meal and we love admiring the various shapes and thinking about how they related to our original inspiration board inspired by our travels. We’re also loving our reworked dining table that Edgewood Made fabricated for us, it’s larger and more proportional to the room. We are more than ready for lots of big dinner parties when it’s safe to do so! Finally, we swapped out the old industrial-style light fixture above the table for this gorgeous chandelier that adds just the right amount of drama to the space.
I couldn’t be happier with these Harwich chairs from Target, the lines on them are such a great riff off the traditional windsor chair. Our cabinet that houses extra dishes and our ever-growing ceramic collection looks great with the new mural, the warmer color plays so nicely with the dusty tones in the painting.
Of course, since this is my own home, any room wouldn’t be complete without plants, and lots of them! The bay window is once again home to my ever-growing collection, including this citrus that lives in this sunny window every winter. One of my favorite things to do to add interest to plant collections is to elevate them on vintage stools at varying heights - this also ensures that they get ample sunlight through the cooler months.
When the sun dips down, we made sure to have various sources of light to set the perfect scene each evening. I love how the the new sconces have a bit of a whimsical feel and the ceramic is a bit uneven and imperfect. There a lot of great moments in this section of the mural as well - the sconce is centered on the arch, and the skinny arches lay in the corner dovetailing into the beading around the bay window. And how about the little bits above the bay window? It’s such a delight!
This is one of my favorite views in the space, it’s a “peek” at a little bit of everything in the room and you can really see how the black window sashes ground the space. Way back in Week Three we removed and cleaned-up all of the original window hardware. It was a labor of love but I truly believe that it’s sometimes the little details all coming together to make a space feel cohesive and complete.
Below is the view looking from the bay windows. If you remember from Week One the mirror was already in the space (left by the previous owners) and we love the light it reflects and the sense of history it brings to the room. With the new panel molding and mural completed it finally feels like a balanced focal point instead of just floating on a beige wall.
I’m so pleased with how this butterfly vitrine - that I purchased at an antique store over a year ago - came together. The original piece was squashed between two large round discs on either end. It was bulky and didn’t make much sense visually. I knew from my days as a woodworker that I could DIY some major changes that would hopefully make it better suit our refined space. Now it feels tidy and minimal and your eye can just focus on the beautiful butterflies peached on the branches throughout. I worked with my brother who lives in California to design the custom metal base for the case. It’s a combination of round and square tube (turned on the diagonal) that gives subtle dimension to the base without being distracting. My bother welded everything in his studio and had it powder coated in matte black. I love how delicate the butterflies feel against the backdrop of the wainscoting and the mural, it’s just the right kind of subtle art in a space that is essentially art itself. If you know me, you know I adore collecting things from outdoors (twigs, rocks, feathers, dried pods, etc) and putting them around my home, so this feels really special to have such a dramatic piece.
And last, but not least is the butler’s pantry, which is just on the other side of the dining room and is separated by a partition wall. I really liked this original cabinet, but the blank white color and old hardware felt like it needed a little lift. Since you can see this cabinet in tandem to the dining room from the front of the house, I wanted to keep things subtle, so I painted the cabinet body and shelves the same color as the wainscoting, and then painting the back of the cabinet in a soft white lime wash that let’s my ceramics collection shine. I swapped out the old hardware for some simple, wood knobs that contrast nicely with the grey on the cabinetry and repeat the color from the floors.
Well that’s it for this round friends! Cheers to another successful One Room Challenge. You can checkout the ORC Highlights on my Instagram Stories if you want to see more of the process.
I really appreciate all of you following along and offering encouragement and enthusiasm for the space all along the way, it’s so much fun to interact with a like-minded community of design lovers. I hope that during this difficult time you found this process to be inspiring and energizing, and I hope that if you are able, you are creating a home that is a sanctuary for you and your family.
Head over to the One Room Challenge to check out so many other amazing room transformations as well!
Cheers,
Nicole
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