The evolution of a room

Here is the evolution of our dining room since we bought our house in May. Eight months of changing and rearranging until it felt just right, although let’s face it, nothing ever stays the same around here! Through this transformation you will learn some important tricks for making a room feel larger and ceilings feel taller.

The photo below was taken the day we moved in. The high water curtains came with the home and were the first things to go. We replaced them with floor to ceiling drapes which instantly accentuated the height of the room. It draws your eye the whole length of the wall. This trick will work for any ceiling height. I also painted the door and the the frame as well as the wall and onto the ceiling. Another optical illusion for creating height and making standard size items appear larger and more grand.

When it came to the dining table we decided to go large,8ft long. I say the bigger the better so long as you can comfortably walk around the table with all the chairs pulled out. A table that is too small will look out of place. I found this table and four chairs on Facebook marketplace all for $200!

The next thing we added was wallpaper. Adding pattern and color to the walls helped define the space and made it very cozy and inviting. The vertical lines also help draw the eye upwards creating more height.

Lastly and certainly one of the most important things was changing out the chandelier. The cherry on top. The one that came with the house was way too small so I stuck with the same rule as the table and went big! We chose the Astrid chandelier from Hudson Valley Lighting. A large sculptural and airy piece that created a perfect balance of everything in the room. Also, having multiple lighting sources is always a good idea to create a dynamic atmosphere so we added the Gina plug in sconce in the corner of the room which was easy to install and fun because you can move it from room to room since it’s not hardwired.