Dining Room - How to Create a Color Palette For The Entire Home

ONCE THE FIRST, FIXED COLOR SELECTIONS ARE MADE, THINGS TEND TO FLOW A BIT EASIER AS WE MOVE THROUGH THE HOUSE. NOW YOU HAVE A JUMPING OFF POINT AND THE PROCESS CAN UNFOLD IF YOU LET IT.

 Hey Peeps,This is the third in a multi-post series about creating the ideal color palette for your home. In the first post, we introduced a case study home and used the kitchen to explore where to begin and how to draw inspiration for your home’s colors. Then we moved on to the living/great room. Let's tackle the dining room!  

HERE ARE OUR STARTING ASSUMPTIONS

Again, the general finishes and colors are much like the kitchen and living room and here we are going to add a lot of organic and white elements to the background, as well as on the floor with a neutral rug in order to let each piece of furniture and art stand its own.

FLOORING

CABINETS

PAINT

COUNTER TOPS

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LARGEST OR KEY PIECES FIRST

Although timeless, the room also speaks to the family’s modern eclectic sense of style. We start this journey with a fabulous dining table from one of our favorite stores, Four Chairs Furniture & Design in Utah. They offer this wonderful Park Dining Table made out of reclaimed wood and iron. It’s a good size for family gatherings and kids projects. This multi purpose piece will fulfill all of the family’s needs for meals, projects, and kids’ homework, and during the day it will provide a workspace for the adults. On top of its functionality, the clean lines, simplicity, and combination of materials bring a certain organicness to the room.An anchor piece doesn’t have to be a rug, it could be a piece of furniture of the same scale on the opposite side of the room to balance the space out. When you feel as though a room is missing something, step back and look around. Where do you feel the void?The dining room is anchored by this casual, welcoming Chantelle Ivory & Mist rug in wool and cotton with soft, washed-out colors that complement the Canvas With Movement art pieces in both the living and dining rooms. (Since these pieces are selected as examples only, please remember to plan for an approximately 24” allowance where the rug extends from under the table, to allow room for the chairs to be pulled out without teetering off of the rug. Depending on the size and shape of your chairs, you may be able to go with less than 24”, but that’s what we use as a rough rule of thumb.)Now that we’ve added in the big pieces, let’s add the complementary or contrasting pieces that will turn these selections into a complete room.For dining chairs, believe it or not, we’ve gone with some from Cost Plus World Market, as well as a couple of leather chairs for the daytime workers and the messy projects.Check these babies out! We add a bit of vintage whimsy with the wishbone chairs with faux-fur seats, accompanied by distressed leather and organically textured chairs with Mid-Century lines to balance out the curves.Test any chairs you are considering at home, together, with the rug and table also in place. Most furniture stores will arrange for you to test pieces out. Or if you’re working with a designer, he or she can navigate this process with you; designers typically have relationships with vendors and can at the very least manage to borrow a couple of pieces at a time.Thinking of purchasing a set? Read our post about not purchasing sets! 

FOR THE CROWNING TOUCH, CHECK OUT THIS CHANDELIER

That is the Penny Chandelier from Four Chairs Furniture. In a complementary dusty blue and gold, it is shabby but oh-so-chic. It makes a great addition to the room’s eclectic collection. Although it doesn’t have modern lines, it is a great addition to the curved chairs, the reclaimed wood of the table, and the textile wall; they contrast with all the other straight lines. Made from coco beads and metal finished with a coyly glam gold, it’s at the same time organic and simple.Then to accent the bright room and the collected look, we add another pièce de résistance from Lauren Williams. We couldn’t get our hands on a photo of a Canvas with more blues, so we’re showing this piece that also complements the rug. One of her other pieces with more blues or a commissioned piece would really kick this grouping to the next level.Place one of these pieces on a deep charcoal gray wall or a bright white wall, as you’d want this piece to jump off the wall and for nothing around to compete with it. The same goes for the one in the living room, but since the sofa in the living room has color, crisp up that wall with a beautiful bright white paint brought down from the ceiling.We’d place a beautiful fiddle fig tree near the window by the crisp white linen panels, and an oversized mirror with an understated frame on the opposite wall to reflect the light and capture glimpses of the Canvas art and chatter during happy family meals.This is the time to wait and see all of these pieces together in the room before adding anything else. A vase with flowers, perhaps, or maybe a couple of well-chosen prints to one side of the wall where the mirror leaningagainst the wall. A side table below the Canvas piece, and maybe a side lamp.When each piece is thought through and curated over time and you test it before committing to it, then you only need a few pieces to make the room and house a home.Up next, we’ll be looking at the master bath. We hope you’ll follow along and see how we draw our color palette into a very different area of the house.Need help navigating what you want to feel when you enter your living room? Visit our website and take a few moments to complete the questionnaire, send us information regarding the project you have in mind, and we can guide you through the process by making it fluid, stress-free and actually fun!Stay tuned for the upcoming posts about two other key home spaces where we can continue our color palette with texture, continuity, and style.