Hey my friends! As promised, I painted the DR and I am super happy with the way it turned out! I wish I would’ve done it long ago, but sometimes it just takes time to realize what is best for a space. It started to click for me after I began to understand what a dramatic change dark paint in the entry way has made, I should’ve probably realized it sooner considering our living room is v dark and I have always loved it. I think I was holding out hope that I could pull off bright and airy, and possibly white everything. Dark however can be dramatic and light plays so nicely with it, dare I say it can be nearly as friendly to light as white walls can. I don’t think the room looks any smaller either, if anything it’s larger because now it feels unified with the living room, it feels like two defined spaces sharing one larger space.
Can I just take a sec to say how much decorating my home has been a process, a really enjoyable process. I can’t expect everything to come together perfectly all at once, it just takes time for all those ideas and concepts to stew.
Try not to pay attention to all the details, because there is still lots more to do in the dining room (these are just some hasty snaps). I am going to reupholster the dining chairs in a white fabric (I think). I also might have ordered a rug that is on sale, I just wanted to see what it looks like in the space, if it’s a grand slam, I’ll keep it, otherwise it will be returned. I’ll share once it comes in! I don’t have the budget right now to replace the curtain rods and curtains to match those in the living room, so I just painted them brass-ish with this metallic spray paint, and I think it turned out pretty well considering it was a $5 fix.
I’m also playing around with the idea of painting the living room one shade darker. It’s hard to tell in these photos because of the time of day, but the sun coming in through the south windows (the big bay in the dining room and the window behind the sofa in the living room) in the afternoon really brightens the teal color and makes it seem more saturated (which I am not in to). I’d like the paint color to be darker and more muted, and if I can find the perfect shade of paint, I don’t think it will effect the dark moody morning and evening vibe that I love so much.
I love it!! What color did you end up using for your walls?
Oops – ‘spose that would have been good information to share. The color is called Arabian Night and it is a color I found at Ace back in 2013 when I madeover the kitchen, I believe Pratt and Lambert makes it — I had it matched at the Home Depot with Behr paint. For what it’s worth, they had the color on file at the Home Depot.
It’s beautiful! Would you mind sharing the Behr color?
the color looks really good! my living / dining space is dark woodwork, and i currently have it as a light grey.. would probably love it dark, but i have so many other areas around it painted dark that it might be too much.
I want to upholster your chairs in a black mini buffalo check and use one of these rugs:
http://www.westelm.com/products/watercolor-trellis-wool-shag-rug-ivory-t2570/?pkey=crugs-flooring
or
http://www.westelm.com/products/mid-century-heathered-basketweave-wool-rug-steel-t1811/?pkey=crugs-flooring
can’t wait to see more!
Hey Katie! Thanks for the buffalo check idea, I’ll have to stew on that for awhile – I really like it! I hope I’m not overdoing it with the dark, but like I said, I feel like it makes the living room and dining room feel more like one large space and that can’t be all bad :)
Wow, Scoops, this is fantastic! Amazingly fantastic!
Random question, how’s the dining table finish holding up? Mine is looking terrible and I thought this spring I should follow in your footsteps and re-finish the top. I’m debating between regular poly like you used and Behlen Rockhard finish (which requires a month cure time). Like I mentioned a few posts ago, my table gets lots of abuse so I’m leaning towards Rockhard. But a month+ using a folding table might not be the best. Decisions!
Thanks, Stacey! A totally good question – we don’t use the table every day, although we’re starting to use it more often now that we’re hunkering down for the fall. The finish has held up very nicely, actually it’s probably still as nice as the day I finished it minus one barely visible scratch. It does have a little smudge visible on the top in the second photo, but that was just someone not doing their after-dinner-clean-up-job last night. I’ve been very careful to clean it with any product, I usually just use warm water on a paper towel and follow it up by buffing with a lint free cloth.
Anyways, if you have a place in your home where you can leave a table to cure for a month, I would do it, especially if you want it to last forever.
good god that looks so good! i’m anxious to see if that rug is a hit.
Me too! It should be arriving today, so I’m sure I’ll be posting about it in no time :)
This is so fantastic! And can I say your paint lines look like perfection. Love the dark and how it plays with the living room next door. AWESOME!
I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything, but I kinda kill it when it comes to free handing it with a brush ;)
You free-handed this?!!! Wow! I’m impressed! Doing a dark color on the walls against a white ceiling could lead to very visible “oops”marks.
I tape off my ceilings & then go over the edge of the tape with ceiling paint. If there’s any areas the wall color could have bled through, it’s been filled with the ceiling paint. I hope That makes sense. But it always results in a crisp line.
Obviously you don’t need the advice but maybe it will help someone else.
And I love your dark walls.
Fabulous! I can’t believe how quickly you went from a photoshop idea to done.
Sometimes when I get an idea, I just can’t stop myself. Plus, I have all this time now that the kids are in school :)
Love love love this! It’s refreshing to see something so different from the white-on-white that’s so prevalent.
I spent – no exaggeration – 8 months choosing a living room paint color. After four months looking for a mid-tone gray, I ended up coming to the same conclusion as you did: dark walls make 100-year-old woodwork look so, sooo good! A neat trick I discovered along the way: I wanted to go darker than BM’s Smokestack Gray, but not all the way to Lead Gray, so I had Smokestack mixed in a Base 3.
Grey is so, so hard, especially when you have woodwork and lighting in play. It thrives when it has a contrasting color like white to play off of, but gets in trouble with anything else. Just googled your color, totally like it!! Thanks for posting the tip re: easy ways to go to darker with paint while staying in the same tone.
It looks absolutely beautiful, such an improvement! People are terrified of dark colours – everyone thought I was crazy when I painted my kitchen in a similar shade, but I love it. Everything, especially wood, stands out so beautifully. And it feels so cozy and intimate. I ended up doing our bedroom in the same dark colour since it doesn’t get much light anyway and I figured its just paint right? I could always change it. But nope, love it (and weirdly the room feels bigger, mostly I think because the walls ie darker colours recede). Great job!
I agree it does feel so cozy and intimate! I agree that in the right situation it helps the walls to push back and recede, I experience the same thing in my kitchen where I have one very dark wall.
I wholeheartedly agree with Liz’s comment. The internet is flooded with white on white on white. White is beautiful in some spaces but not all. I found your blog in my attempt to find some inspiration in color and I love to see your thought process on finding the right colors for your home. So glad I found this blog!
Thanks, Laura! I’ll admit, I’m not adding colors in such big ways as I was a few years ago. However, when adding color, I really take the time to think it through and curate it to make sure that it will do all the right things for the space. I’m glad you found me too!
I would have never expected a dark color with the dark wood would look so… sexy! BUT HERE WE ARE! :D
oooh, sexy ;)
Love the color and the new living color. What finish are you liking with dark paint? Flat? Eggshell?
Hey Laura! With my old plaster walls, I’m a flat everything girl, unless it’s trim or cabinets, and then I go eggshell or satin. Our living room has the worst walls out of the whole house as far as the plaster goes, someday I will have to try and repair them as there are sections where they have pulled away from the lathe and need to be reattached with plaster buttons. The dark paint does a good job of not drawing attention to the blemishes though.
I love this look so much. Would you mind sharing where you got your table and chairs from?
What color is the stain for the trim?