Well, this is the post you have all been waiting for – eight months of waiting to be exact! I never imagined that it would take this long to complete one room, but given the size of the space, a pandemic, and starting a new business (hello mask chain shop) – things took a tad longer than anticipated.

So this is our formal dining room folks! It’s a bit ironic that we can’t even use the space right now given current circumstances, but trust me I’m counting down the days until we can have a great big dinner party and enjoy a meal together with our closest friends and family!

Let’s start by chatting about the inspiration for the space. If you saw our family room reveal last winter and IG shots of our kitchen – it is all very white. This made me want to design the dining room and entryway with lots and lots of colour (see Entryway Reveal HERE) since they are the first spaces you see when walking into the house! I wanted this room to be bold and energetic, yet not so maximalist that it felt cluttered or over-the-top. It took us a while to narrow down a palette, but after convincing hubby on my two favourite colours – pink & yellow – everything else just seemed to fall right into place.

My overall goal for the space was for it to be bright, interesting, and having lots of wonderful elements that would be great conversation starters when guests come over. I think looking at it now that we achieved just that and I can’t wait to tell you how we got to this point!

Drapery plays a big role in completing a room. I went back and forth between keeping the drapery in this space neutral or going bold, but in the end I decided to go bold or go home and chose Canary Velvet Matt drapery panels from Pattern Homes. You may have seen my failed attempts at drapery back in the early stages of planning this room – so am I ever glad I held out until I found the perfect ones. The ones we decided on are a bright warm yellow, super luxurious velvet, and such a cheery addition to the space. I worked with Pattern Homes a few months back on our Kitchen Breakfast Area reveal and her drapery is so high quality and beautiful that I knew I had to have the panels in my dining room too.

We went with 4 custom panels (120”L), each with cartridge pleats and fully lined. I’m always blown away by Shirley’s meticulous work, and since she offers her panels in a such a wide array of colours they are sure to match any decor project you have on the go. Also, I truly appreciate how quick she is in replying to messages about an order – custom drapes are a big deal so you want to make sure you get it right the first time. Before placing my first order I read numerous reviews about how people praised her for her response time which says a lot about her customer service. She so graciously answers all questions you may have so that you can guarantee you’re getting exactly what you want. One other thing I love about Pattern Homes is that you can order her entire collection of fabric swatches so you can match a particular fabric to your project. This was super helpful for both of my projects because in each instance I ended up going with a different colour than I had originally thought I would. They are super convenient to have on hand for my next set of projects coming up too!

Another major component to this dining room project was lighting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – lighting makes or breaks a space! You go too small and it will always look like you cheapened out, you pick the wrong style and your entire design looks off. Take as much time as you need before selecting your lighting. It’s easy to change art or even a set of chairs – but not too often will you be switching out lighting on a whim.

When our house was still under construction and we were at the stage of planning out all of the lighting, we actually hired Christine Dovey for a consultation to help us map out where we wanted  all of our lighting to be. Our dining room is quite long, so in an effort to minimize it not looking like a bowling alley with rows and rows of pot lights, she suggested putting accent fixtures in each corner of the room in addition to two centre chandeliers. We went back and forth with this idea as we had never done anything like it before, but am I ever glad we decided on it.

We outfitted the entire room with fixtures from Dainolite and they truly are the WOW factor of the entire space! The two centre chandeliers are from the Amanda Collection and we went with the 18-light version in aged brass and white glass. This style also comes in a 9-light option which is equally as beautiful – but given the size of the dining room the larger scale really balanced everything out perfectly. I love the art-deco/vintage vibes these lights give off, but they are still simple enough to stand the test of time. Even if the decor in the space changes down the road, these lights are sure to always look fabulous!

We centred the two chandeliers directly in the middle of the room so that we could place our 12-ft dining table and rug right in the exact middle. We debated going with a smaller table and dividing up the space into a dining room/living room, but who uses a formal living room these days anyways – it would have been a complete waste of space. With this centre focused configuration though we were able to make it one grand space that (eventually) can be used as a fab dinner party space.

Now back to those corner accent fixtures. Dainolite had the perfect matching pendants to our Amanda chandeliers and we instantly fell in love with the one-light pendant from the Orion Collection. Interestingly, I completely misread the dimensions of the pendant when we placed our order and when they arrived the white glass was much much larger than I had anticipated. However, after a brief moment of panic thinking that they were way too big, the 12″D  size actually grew on me and they couldn’t be anymore perfect. Any smaller would have looked too dinky now that they are in the space, so my mistake actually ended up working out for the better!

So many of you had asked about this huge dining table when I posted it on Instagram a while back, and yes, it was one of the best FB Marketplace finds I ever scored. We found a guy who made custom tables but had this one in his barn for ages and just wanted to clear it out. We knew we needed a 12-ft table and although this one was a bit narrower than we would have preferred, the length was perfect, the stain was right on, and it had awesome pedestal legs that I think were the selling factor for me. Best part it had never been used and we got it for a fraction of what we should have paid for such a large custom dining table. Sadly I never got the name of his business to refer anyone and once the listing was gone I couldn’t get in touch anymore – sorry!

Dining chairs were so hard to decide on for the space (probably because we needed 10), but we ended up going with the Alotti dining chair in Shell from Nuevo Living because the colour really balanced out all the other vibrant hues, and I love how the bouclé fabric adds so much texture to the space. They are also super comfortable which is really important if you want your guests to linger at the table. That is  – when you can actually have guests over again…

The circa 1900 buffet was another FB Marketplace find that helped keep the cost of the space way down. Again, because of the size of this room, large anchor pieces of furniture were needed so as not to throw off the scale. As I look back I do wonder if painting this piece was the right choice – but nonetheless I painted it in Annie Sloan Pure White Chalk Paint and it really does keep the room bright and airy so I’m glad I went with this white. I ran into a few issues when painting because of the age of the piece (the stain bled really badly through many coats of paint), but in the end I still got a vintage look that balances off the design of the space just right.

Another honourable mention that took the dining room from functional to artistic is all this fabulous art from A Brush & Canvas! Literally my dining room is an art gallery now and I’m loving all the colour, pattern and texture! Danielle from A Brush & Canvas creates custom art based on your specifications. We worked together to design pieces that would bring life to the space and make it truly our own. I would highly suggest getting in touch if you’re looking for a commissioned piece of art at a reasonable price point!

Well that just about covers it. I hope you loved this look into our dining room as much as we do, and I hope it serves as inspiration to infuse lots of colour into your next home decor project!

SOURCE LIST Dining Table: FB Marketplace | Lighting: ℅ Dainolite | Drapery: ℅ Pattern Homes | Chairs: Nuevo Living | Drapery Rods: West Elm | Rug: Dash & Albert | Credenza: CB2 | Buffet: Vintage (Pure White Chalk Paint ℅ Annie Sloan) | Dress: c/o Crosby by Mollie Burch (sold out, similar) | Shoes: c/o Shoes4U | Colourful Abstract Artwork, Pair of Abstract Artwork, Pair of Ink Drawings: A Brush & Canvas | Other artwork, Large Beige Floor Vase: HomeSense | Black Bust: Similar | Dotted Floor Vase: Accents For Living | Black Palms, Blonde Pampas Grass & Black Vase: BloomScout | Black Chair: Vintage | Blue Pom Pom Cushion, Gold Tray: Real Canadian Superstore | Acrylic & Gold Small Table: HCD Furniture (Similar) | Charcoal Bench: West Elm

*Photos by Darby Mitchell Photography