A Traditional Dining Room Intro

Hey all it’s Ginny again bringing you another intro at the Griffith Park (1939 Georgian) house we’ve been working on. We already posted about their Sunroom and Living Room so next up is the Dining Room. They loved the design of the Silver Lake Hills dining room and really wanted us to channel that vibe. They’d already tried to purchase the wallpaper Emily used in there, but sadly it’s been discontinued (why would they do that, yet still have the raspberry color?!). With this being their main dining space we did want to make it feel really special and eclectic yet formal but not too stuffy.

Until writing this post it had been a while since I’d looked through the before photos. I’d completely forgotten that the top half was painted in that blue color. Although I don’t hate the paint, I’m so happy the clients were open to wallpaper because it really makes this room feel extra unique. Before we started working with them (December 2015 – you can tell by the holiday wreath), they had already purchased the dining table from Restoration Hardware, but needed help pulling the rest of the room together. The bay window is a fave of ours and there was talk of adding a bar cart or extra seating in there. The windows are pretty much down to the floor so it didn’t seem right to add any kind of built-in.

They wanted to replace the chandelier with something that felt more ‘them’ and more interesting. The drapery and rods are actually in good shape so we decided to keep them and save the some money.

Mirror | Tea Set | Chandelier (similar) | Wallpaper | Console Table | Curtains | Bar Cart | Dining Chairs | Table | Rug

We wanted use a mix of vintage and new in this room so we didn’t do a crazy amount of moodboards. The one above was used as an aid to capture the general vibe and get conversations started. The room is rather wide which gave us plenty of space for a buffet as well as a bar cart. Burlwood was a high contender for use in this house and we have other pieces in the living room and bedroom. We brought over a lot of options of wallpaper including some that had similar deco style detailing to the one from the Silver Lake house. The one on the board above is from Farrow & Ball and I’ve seen this installed at Big Daddy’s showroom in LA – it’s not as bonkers as it might seem and the more muted, tonal colors are really beautiful.

The pattern in the wallpaper is made up of tiny metallic silver dots (or pearls as they are called on their website) which is very subtle but still feels dramatic and eye-catching. It took many attempts, but I managed to twist their arm into buying the 1960’s Italian Stilnovo style chandelier.  It also sparked off a love for other Stilnovo lamps in this house which you’ll see in other rooms. The chairs already belonged to the clients and while the style doesn’t really work in here, the idea of using wood did. White would be too contrasting and anything really dark would get lost against the dining table. They really wanted 10-12 vintage worn leather chairs (that didn’t cost a small fortune) which was virtually impossible to find, especially when taking into account the size of the dining table. Here you get a detailed view of the rug that we got from Loloi. It’s fairly low pile and has a striped ribbed detail – nothing too fussy because we wanted the wallpaper to be the focus in here. The tone is oatmeal with light and dark colour flecks in it, rather pretty in person.

Moving into Easter (you can appreciate how long we’ve been working on this) we found this beautiful Italian console with burlwood drawers and black lacquer frame. Not usually a huge fan of two tone furniture but this is very elegant with a few nice traditional details to it. We’ve since added a round mirror above it to break up the wall space.

The above moodboard is fairly accurate as to what is happening in there now. We have a side table and two chairs going in the bay window and we found these dining chairs from West Elm (now discontinued). The mid-toned wood along with the finely woven caning works well and helps to lighten the dining table.

Mirror | Tea Set | Chandelier (similar) | Wallpaper | Console Table (similar) | Curtains | Accent Chairs | Accent Table | Bar Cart (similar) | Dining Chairs (similar) | Table | Rug

Here’s a little sneak peek into how this room is coming along. It’s really hard not to show you all the recent progress photos we’ve taken, but it would just give too much away. So for now this is as much as you’re getting. Sorry 🙂 The room through the doorway is the living room intro we spoke about the other week, so be sure to check it out if you didn’t do already.

We still have a few more intros in this house before the final reveals, but let us know if you have any questions so far!