Amazing Accessories for a Dining Room Makeover

What did last week’s Week 4 of the One Room Challenge and Wednesday have in common? Both felt like hump day, the halfway point of our dining room makeover project. Now it feels like the fun really starts, which means concentrating on amazing accessories for a dining room makeover.

We are on the home stretch, we see the end zone and are heading for home base. (Sorry, got carried away.)

I think of accessories as anything other than furniture. It’s like the jewelry that makes the little black dress special and personal.

Accessories give color, personality, interest, texture and pattern to any room. Whether small, large, precious or repurposed, I think accessories are the most interesting part of a room. Week 5 of the One Room Challenge is the week we can finally start adding some amazing accessories to our dining room.

Amazing Accessories for a Dining Room Makeover ~ ORC Week 5

This post contains affiliate links to products that I used and highly recommend. If you should order any product through this site, I may be compensated, but you don’t pay a penny more.

After sharing my original design decisions in Week 3, in Week 4, we finished painting the dining room a new light, more neutral color ~ Silver Satin by Benjamin Moore.

Here was my to~do list for Week 5.

• return all the china, crystal and silver to the vaisselier and style the shelves 👍🏻
• the rug we ordered arrives and I hope we love it  👎🏻
• the 2 Peony prints arrive (Then I can make a decision about the other art in the room and the color of the fabric for the accent pillows.) 👍🏻 👎🏻
• the drapes are being installed at the end of this week!!! 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻
• paint a few accent accessories ❌

So let me show how we progressed.

Styling the Vaisselier

Our vaisselier has basically been styled the same since we bought it for our previous home 19 years ago. In that house it was in the breakfast room and we used vintage plates with a fruit pattern ~ very old-world French. It’s been in our dining room since we moved here 5 years ago with the same plates plus some crystal candlesticks, bells, and serving pieces.

For the new dining room look, I wanted a cleaner, more neutral feel. Our china, Eternal by Lenox was perfect since it is classic, yet current and has gold rims. That picks up the brushed gold in the drapery hardware. I used fewer candlesticks and serving pieces for a cleaner look. I used four gold chargers to add a metallic reflection.

The Dining Room Rug

In Week 3, I showed you my design vision. I had narrowed our choices down to 2: the Shoals Silver on the left or the Becontree on the right, both from Joss and Main.

My gut told me to go with the Becontree, but I wanted a more modern look, which is not my usual choice, so I ordered the Shoals Silver.

And guess what? I was wrong. Although it had a pretty pattern and the color was the right gray, it just didn’t have the right feel that the room needed. So back it went to Wayfair (Joss and Main) and we ordered the Becontree. Which will arrive tomorrow so its reveal has to wait until the big reveal on Week 6.

The Dining Room Drapes

I shared with you the style of drapes we chose ~ simple unlined, pinch pleat, sheer white fabric with an embroidered design. To say that I love these drapes is a huge understatement. Moving the commode from the bay window to the entry had a much bigger impact than I imagined. Not only did we gain almost 3 feet of space, but the visual impact was tremendous.

With the bay windows completely exposed, the room opened up the view to the outside, let in plenty of light, and made the room seem so much larger.

But, without any window treatments, the windows looked like bare naked ladies.

Now that the draperies cover the window frames, the room has a fresh, elegant look. Layla wanted in on the action.

I love how airy they look. The white-on-white embroidered pattern gives just the right amount of interest.

I love the brushed gold hardware ~ just a touch of soft metallic ~ with the lucite finial ~ another current design feature that plays off our very traditional chandelier. Hanging the drapes just below the lower ceiling creates a feeling of height.

The drapes are easily closed if we want more privacy at night.

On the side window, we had to deadend the rod into the wall.

I’m not sure if we’ll leave the vintage bar cart in front of the center window or move it back to the corner where it has been. I’m thinking that a pretty plant would be good in the corner to add an organic feel and a pop of green to the room.

Art Work

I  know I wanted more modern, colorful art on the walls. As I mentioned in Week 3, I wanted pink to be my main pop of color. The first prints I found that I love were these 2 complementary watercolor prints of peonies from Joss and Main. I ordered them with the intent of placing one on each side of the vaisselier.

In the meantime, I continued to search for 2 large pieces to go on the big back wall of the dining room where we had the tapestries that we bought in Venice 3 1/2 years. We really liked them and they weren’t very expensive, but again the dark, old world look was outdated. Again, here are a few possibilities I found.

When I showed Sweet Shark the art I was looking at online, he asked me if I remembered some large prints that he had at his house when we met. No, I didn’t. (When we met, Sweet Shark’s home was very masculine with lots of black and gray with mirrors and modern touches.

The home was originally built in the 1940’s as a cute cottage, but had been enlarged over the years. When he bought it in 1980, he worked with a decorator to give it a definite bachelor look. When we began the total remodel on it in 1998, (Wish there had been blogging then because the transformation was amazing.) we either sold most of his stuff or put the really good things in storage for a year.)

Anyway, the art that he was thinking of has been in storage at his office for 20 years. I went to his office and we looked at the art. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I thought about the 3 pieces. But I said let’s take them home and see if they would work.

We looked up the artist of these signed and numbered prints, Nancy Dennison ,and discovered that she is a well~known artist whose work is still available. This site also told us the current value of the prints we had.

I wanted to wait until the drapes were installed and the peony prints arrived to make a decision about the abstract art. I asked the decorator who was there to oversee the drapery installation what she thought about using the Nancy Dennison prints. She thought they were classic contemporary and using all 3 would nicely fill the wall. (Each one is 31″ X 41″.)

I knew that Sweet Shark would be pleased if we could use them since we already owned them and they were far more valuable than anything we could purchase.

Before we hung the prints, I cleaned the glass (After 20 years in storage, it was filthy.) and wiped down the frames. The frames needed some touch-up in a few places. Rather than use a brush to do that, I just put on a plastic glove and dipped my finger into black paint, dapped it on, and then smoothed it out.

A great deal of careful measuring and remeasuring and we hung the prints across the back wall. It wasn’t easy to get 3 large prints on a large wall evenly spaced and hanging at the right level. We used a level, a good metal measuring tape, a pencil, and a Magic Eraser. Patience helps too!

Even though each print is a little different, I think they are cohesive and a good solution for this large blank wall (12 1/2 feet wide and 10 feet tall) and I’m glad we are repurposing them.

But we agreed that the peony prints would not look good on the adjacent wall ~ the colors and too much floral would fight each other.

Instead, we decided that some wall decor rather than more art should go on each side of the vaisselier. Maybe mirrors or a decorative tile. I did some research on Joss and Main and found these mirrors which fit the bill: interesting shape and size (24″ X 27″), reflective, gold trim to pick up the gold of the drapery hardware and dishes on the vaisselier. Very affordable. They will arrive later this week and be up for the big reveal next week.

They will fill this space on each side of the vaisselier.

So what about the peony prints?

We decided that instead of putting back the square silver ornate framed mirror that had been in the room next to the single window (I had planned to go over it with Gold Gilding Wax.) instead we would use one of the peony prints. I picked the one that I liked the best and we hung it. I love how it gives more color to that side of the room.

Paint a Few Accent Accessories

Since we are not using the old mirror, I don’t think that I will need to paint anything for the room so I can cross that off my list for Week 6. I was going to reuse the silver (painted gold) sconces that used to be on each side of the vaisselier on each side of the bay window, but we determined that they no longer fit the aesthetic of the room. Another paint job that isn’t needed.

Make Decorative Pillows

I do have decorative pillows to make for the 2 dining room chairs that sit on each side of the vaisselier. When I was envisioning the peony prints above the chairs, I thought I needed to use a solid color ~ hot pink  ~ on the chairs. But now that the prints would not be above the chairs, we could use more patterns and a mix of colors. Two weeks ago when I visited several fabric stores, I had seen some gorgeous patterns but dismissed them since they weren’t solid. Now a whole new possibility opened up. A trip back and I found what I think will be the beautiful fabric for the 2 accent pillows.

This fabric had to be specially ordered (I only need 1 yard!) and will arrive at the end of this week. I ordered the pillow inserts on Amazon in the exact size I needed, 12 X 16 inches.

Week 6 To~Do List

I hope that you like our amazing accessories for a dining room makeover. As we come to the final week, I know everyone must be getting nervous (Will everything arrive on time? Will we run out of time?) I think I have everything under control (Fingers crossed!) We are also getting ready for our Kentucky Derby Party on Saturday so it will be a busy several days ahead.

Here’s what’s on my to~do list to finish the dining room makeover:

• Lay down a new rug (lots of fingers crossed!)
• Hang new mirrors
• Purchase a tall plant for the corner of the dining room and search for a planter (Or maybe for the bay window and move the bar cart to the corner?)
• Find a centerpiece for the dining room table ~ one that can be pretty on the table for every day and has either metallic or color
• Fabric arrives and make accent pillows

Gosh, I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. There will be a lot of Kentucky Derby Preparations going on the rest of this week. Our dining room makeover won’t be complete, but I hope that most of it is done by Saturday for the party.

If you like this dining room makeover, then please PIN IT.