I’ve been sharing snippets of our ‘new’ dining room on the blog for the past few months, but I really wanted to dedicate an entire post for our little dining room make-over as well. This room was one of the first rooms we decorated over 7 years ago and although I really liked it at the time, it hasn’t been to my taste for quite some time now. I didn’t want to do a total make-over though. I still liked my old Ikea Stockholm cabinets and it would have been very wasteful to replace them with something similar. I have been looking for an excuse to get rid of our black glass dining table for a while now. It was too narrow and I was never really in love with it in the first place. The best part about this mini transformation is that we didn’t need to repaint the room or do any structural changes. Also the furniture layout is the same. I did add a gallery wall few years ago to it that made a huge difference (I’ll get to this soon).
Here is our old dining room table and chairs (plus few accessories that I decided to get rid of!)
It really wasn’t that bad I guess. The room certainly looked a lot worse when we moved in 8 years ago (see it here). But I didn’t find it very inspiring and I was getting very bored with the table and chairs. The room also felt quite dark due to all the black furniture and accessories. I still love black, just in smaller doses I think. Our old table was from our previous rental and I didn’t want to replace it while it was still in good condition. I also didn’t want a brand new table with young children/babies so it made sense to wait.
It took me months to find my new dining room table. Technically it found me. I was torn between marble (effect) and real wood. I love marble but I felt that it would have been too cold in this space. I guess it was also a bit too similar to my old glass table and I wanted something totally different this time. I loved the look of wood, but I was really worried about maintaining it (especially since we have children). Luckily around the same time Will from the Urban Workshop got in touch with me via Instagram. He had seen one of my (many) ‘Dining room table dilemma’ insta stories and convinced me that real wood won’t be that much more work. Will makes custom wood furniture and homewares in his central London workshop and after chatting on Instagram I commissioned him to build me my dream dining table. I’ve never had custom furniture built before, so this was a very exciting project for me. I got to design the table that I wanted, with the help of Will of course (read more about the process of ordering a custom wood table here).
When my new table arrived I was over the moon. It was exactly what I wanted and more. It looks so luxurious and unique. I’m so happy I went for white ash rather than oak as I love the grain and how light the table is. The table itself consists of 4 wood planks that are glued together. I wanted the seams to be as invisible as possible and Will did an amazing job as it’s really hard to see them. He also made sure that the pattern (meaning the wood grain) flows within the table. This is so important to me as I wanted it to look very natural and organic (if that makes sense). I decided to go for chamfered edges for the sides and straight edges for the tops. The chamfered edges make the table feel even more elegant, don’t you think? Honestly I couldn’t love it more. My wood table was treated with Osmo oil (many coats of it) which has made it very stain resistant. We do get the odd stain every now and then (the joy of having children) but they have all come off fine. Golden syrup has been the trickiest to remove (it actually made the wood darker) but luckily I managed to get rid of the stain. We do use placemats by the way, but they are not totally stain proof. The great thing about real wood is that it can be sanded down and oiled if you do end up with some serious damage. I’ll be writing another post about how to maintain a wooden table very soon.
Finding new chairs to go with my table took longer than I thought. I wanted to wait until we had the table to make sure I knew what look I was going for. I considered getting wishbone style chairs but I knew my husband wouldn’t find them comfortable. Velvet was my second choice and I was thrilled when I spotted these black velvet chairs on Maisons du Monde website (discontinued but find similar ones here). I wanted to mix things up a bit which is why I went for black and white patterned chairs for the tops. I’m so happy how the table and chairs turned out. Velvet looks amazing paired with light wood. I just love the contrast. I find the velvet chairs very comfortable too and not as hard to keep clean as people think. I just dust them with a damp micro fiber cloth every few days (and gently hoover them when I’m cleaning). I do think going for darker colours help, especially if you have young children. I’ve also written a detailed post on how to maintain velvet chairs (if you have children).
By the way, I was planning to buy a new rug to go under the dining table, but I would have had to have one custom made due to the odd size/shape of the room. In the end I decided against it because I felt it would take away from the table and chairs. Our new wooden table is such a big statement piece on its own that it doesn’t need any extras. Usually you would add an area rug if you wanted to frame your dining table and often it helps to pull the look together (especially if you’re going for a dining room table/chairs set). I felt like this room didn’t need it though. I like the casual look. I would never say never, but for now I don’t see an area rug in this room (the upholstered and patterned chairs add enough texture to it).
You may have noticed that I got rid of the black mirror in the middle. The whole point of this mini make-over was to make the space feel less black and white and more neutral. Obviously the chairs and the wall art frames are still black. Black is a such a decor staple for me, I think I will always have black accents in my house. Anyway, I was thinking of replacing the square mirror with a round mirror but since I had this huge canvas wall art lying around the house (I used to have it in the lounge) I thought why not place it in the dining room in stead. I love it in this spot! I don’t see myself placing a mirror here anytime soon.
Talking about art, I also added few extra prints to our dining room gallery wall. I created this gallery wall as part of a collaboration with Wayfair few years ago and it really transformed the space. However, I’ve been thinking about replacing the big black palm print with something more subtle for quite some time. When I saw these stunning abstract/figurative art prints on the Desenio website I knew they’d be perfect. I didn’t reshuffle any other pictures which actually we made the job a bit more challenging. I ended up placing some of the prints horizontally, but the great thing with abstract art is that you can get creative with it. I love this gold lines poster. The design is hand painted and I just love the colours. I made sure that all the shapes and colours of our new art prints also complemented our existing wall art. I used Command sticky nails to hang my frames as I’m not a fan on old fashioned nails that damage the wall.
I also added a new nephrolepis plant on top of our wine glass cabinet. 7 years later and I still love my Ikea Stockholm cabinet. I also love their new MILSBO cabinet which is kind of a modern take on the old Ikea cabinet (which has been now discontinued). I also love these pom pom baskets (gifted) from Matalan which add a fun element to our dining room.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions on Instagram what it’s like to maintain my ash wood table and do I regret it etc. I think I will write a separate blog post about this topic soon, but the simple answer is no. I don’t regret it. I love this table and it has really added a luxe feel to our dining room. I wanted this table to be our long term table and if it lasts I’d be quite happy to be ‘stuck with it’ forever. I know the chairs won’t last as long but I’m ok with that. We are planning to move in a few years time and I kept that in mind when I was designing the table (I was thinking long term rather than what suits our house/dining room right now). Obviously I’m thrilled that our dining room looks very different thanks to the new table and chairs. Perhaps that’s why this has been the easiest mini make-over of them all. I’ve received so many compliments on this table from friends and family. But it does require a bit of work (like most wood tables do). We use placemats when we eat (although they don’t fully protect the table) but we do get stains every now and then. If you’re looking for a table that requires zero maintenance then I’d say this is not the table for you. If you’re looking for a table that requires some maintenance but not a lot (I usually wipe it daily after we eat) I’d say go for it. It can be sanded down if the worst should happen.
So, do you think this mini make-over was worth it? I’d like to think so. It just goes to show that changing only one or two pieces of furniture can make a huge difference to your living space. It has been definitely worth it for me and I can’t wait to start working on my next ‘mini’ make-over.
Happy New Year and thank you so much for reading my blog. I hope I can continue to inspire you in 2020 as well!
*This post includes some gifted products.
