A Beautiful Mess Dining Room

A Beautiful Mess Dining Room

Today I am so excited to share our dining room with you! It's one of my personal favorite rooms in the whole house. It's where we love to host parties and dinners and where Laura and I have ABM meetings about interesting topics like soap recipes and jello shot ideas.

What's interesting about this room is that it's visually bold, but to me it's the most minimalist room in our home. We hardly did any decorating because the wallpaper is so bold. When we have parties, we don't really decorate this room, because no matter what you put in here, the wallpaper is all you see. It makes it pretty easy if I'm being honest, and I can see why a lot of hotels and restaurants go this route with their decor. It kind of simplifies this whole process.

I have a bunch of photos to share with you from my shoot with Alyssa Rosenheck for domino. I decided to share these photos as my tour because they really got all the angles. But if you notice a few things moving around, just know it's because that's what you do during magazine shoots. It's the magazine way! Haha!

But FIRST, a walk down memory lane is in order, don't you think?

Before vs. After. Always a good moment to look back and see how far we've come!

We fell in love with this house for 100 different reasons. The formal dining room with doors that walk out into the sunroom was a big one for us. We love the flow of this house. It's very open and natural, but not so open that it feels like just one big room. In the layout, this room sits between the kitchen/breakfast nook and the living room.

The visual change is pretty dramatic, but the steps we took to get from point A to point B were a lot less intense than a lot of the other rooms. We removed the heavy drapes and repaired the trim so that it was flush with the rest of the trim. That's the biggest reason why it's so much brighter now. We refinished the floors with a light whitewash color. We removed the chair rails and added some bold wallpaper. BOLD wallpaper. After that, we kept the decor pretty simple. The most exciting moment in this renovation for me was putting up this dream light fixture. I got it from Shop Candelabra. It looks like it's no longer on their site, but there are a lot of similar options and really dreamy sputniks on there.

The Jane Birkin poster really pops with the wallpaper. It's a blueprint copy of a photo I found online. The frame is DIY.

The wine shelf is a custom piece that Josh Rhodes made when we still lived in Missouri. I loved it in that space, but I love it even more now! It was a beast to move, but since we're never moving ever again, it's all good.

Let's talk about the white rug. Yeah, I saw your judgy looks.

Haha—I'm just kidding! But seriously, read this whole paragraph before you judge.

We chose a Marrakesh Shag Rug for a couple reasons—

1. It's GORGEOUS. I'm not going to lie to you and say I didn't choose it because it's so beautiful. I am not above being vain about my rug choices. I realize a dark rug would've been more practical and potentially lasted longer, BUT I didn't want a dark rug, and it didn't fit this space. I mean—can you even visualize a dark rug here.
2. I've had a rug like this before, and I'm OK with spot cleaning it. I'm also OK with the wear and tear that is going to happen over time. I'm happy to say that almost a year in, it's still looking almost brand new! But there are a few spots here and there from parties, and I can live with that because in the BIG PICTURE, the room looks and feels how I want it to. That's more worth it to me than a rug that promises to "never age" because we all know that rugs don't last forever. If you want to hear me over-explain my choice some more, look no further.

OK, now you can judge me if you still want to!

Our wallpaper is Redoute Rose-Hot Pink by Peacoquette Designs via Spoonflower.

I have so many feelings about this wallpaper. It was love at first sight for sure. It's not really compatible with much other decor, which is a love and hate thing for me. Mostly love! I like that the room always looks complete and pulled together (as long as the table is cleared—haha). And it's visually stunning in a way that truly makes my heart skip a beat when I walk into the room, even after all these months! BUTTERFLIES.

But I will admit the downside to having such bold wallpaper is that the room is not very versatile. You want to throw a halloween party or a themed party or a themed birthday party? Well if it doesn't match pink floral… forget about it. As with most extreme choices, there's an up and a down. For that reason I like to think of this room as the diva of our home. Every person who comes over wants to take a photo by the wallpaper, so I told her she's Instagram famous. 🙂

Well I hope you enjoyed my little tour! We are so happy here.

I'm so grateful for the natural light. It's by far the best thing about our home and the reason why I sometimes jokingly and sometimes very seriously say I will never move.

Fun fact! The cabinet you see to your right holding glassware is actually this cabinet repurposed!

Thank you so much for reading! If you have any questions at all, I'll be popping in to answer them even though I'm on vacation this week because THAT'S how much I love you guys!! xx -Elsie

Other sources: Mirror/Rejuvenation, White Chairs/Amazon, Teak Wood Chair/Lulu & Georgia.

Credits//Author: Elsie Larson. Photography: Alyssa Rosenheck and (photos of me) Laura Gummerman.

A Beautiful Mess Dining Room

Source: https://abeautifulmess.com/elsies-dining-room-tour/