Historic Traditional Dining Room

This young couple wanted a dining room that would work well for having holiday gatherings. They also had many beautiful and historic antique furniture pieces that her father had collected over a lifetime in South Carolina. Since his passing, she wanted to be able to bring the pieces from there to her new home here in Tennessee. She did not know which pieces she had in South Carolina that would work best. They wanted to mix more up-to-date pieces with their antiques. The other challenges were the unflattering window treatments, too small table and chairs, and no place to serve from.

Working from her photographs and measurements of the antique furniture pieces long-distance, I was able to put together space plans for each room in the new home, including this dining room. From her photographs, I noticed she had a beautiful Queen Anne styled dining room table and chairs, a swirl mahogany chest with a marble top and a buffet table, all which were added to the space. I anchored the room in a sculpted light blue rug to coordinate with the existing flocked wallpaper. This provided a neutral pallet from which to work. I reupholstered the chair seats with updated sculpted navy-blue fabric. Flanking buffet lamps, and a crystal-based column lamp, all with black shades, were added to offer some mood lighting options to the black iron chandelier. Updated oil art was added above the server and complemented the wallpaper color. The custom window treatments with butterfly pleats began with a textured sheer as the first layer, along with faux silk blue drapery fabric on custom acrylic rods with old brass finish rings and acrylic finials. The top layer of silk drapery was pulled back with large tassel tie-backs.