A Barely Used Dining Room Transforms into the Coziest New Living Room
ABOUT THIS BEFORE & AFTER
HOME TYPE: Historic Home
PROJECT TYPE: Living Room
STYLE: Colorful, Vintage
SKILL LEVEL: DIY
RENTAL FRIENDLY: No
You might’ve heard about how dining rooms are disappearing. In other words, lifestyle and societal changes are shifting such that homeowners and renters are ditching formal dining rooms in favor of smaller setups or open-concept setups. Morgan and Faye (@themaryhouserevival) are the latest to do so. The couple and their kids used the room as a dining area when they first moved in, but later they decided to create a space for living and lounging instead.
“Ultimately, we decided we didn’t need a formal dining room, and it’s worked out just fine since then,” Faye says. “We didn’t want the TV to be a major focus in our house, so this little room is perfect for our intimate movie nights and TV time. … When we host larger dinner parties, there’s plenty of eating space in the kitchen, breakfast nook, and at the bar.”
The transformation started with the paint color.
Faye says she was in a “deep green phase” when she was working on this room. “I fell in love with the color, and we wanted to work with a lot of the original architecture of the room, she says. She especially wanted to highlight beautiful arched shelving, and she knew she wanted to color drench the room.
She found her “perfect green” after searching online; It’s Clare’s OMGreen. After that, the vision was to layer artwork and other greens in the color-saturated space.
A velvet green couch creates a dreamy tone-on-tone combo.
“We really only spent money on the paint, the TV, and over time, the art pieces,” Faye says. She was especially on the hunt for vintage art pieces.
“Our cozy green couch had come with us in the move, so it was an easy addition,” Faye adds. The rug is from Anthropologie, and the TV is a Samsung frame TV that can blend into the background when Morgan and Faye and family aren’t watching. It all comes together to create a comfy, colorful, casual space.
The room is a perfect combination of these two sentiments from Faye: “The old charm of the home was perfect for our sensibilities; we prefer older homes with character,” and “It also felt like a blank canvas, just right for us to put our stamp on it.”
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Further Reading
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We Asked 8 Pro Travelers What They Never Pack in Their Carry-On, and Here’s What They Said
