The Dining Room That Only Took 3 Years to Get Just Right

Jennifer Laura
Oct 1, 2025
2 min read

There's a lot I could say about the dining room, but instead I'm going to let the photos do the talking. Let's start with the after shall we?

Elegant dining room with a dark wood table, upholstered oval-back chairs, and a large floral centerpiece in a white vase. A vintage mirror reflects the chandelier above, set against a scenic blue mural wall. Papiers De Paris Swan Lake wallpaper.

And does anyone remember the before photo of this space? Oof.

This room looked like this for about a year after we moved in and if it were up to my mom... would probably still look like this today. Ahem. I originally made this space over for the One Room Challenge in Spring of 2021 and that got us here.

I really don't know what I was thinking... my style is grandmillenial so how I ended up designing a space that was just straight up Grandma is a total mystery to me. I tweaked it a bit a few months later which brought us here...

I put the original cream curtains back, pulled in the rug from my old office, and threw a sheet (yes, a wrinkly old sheet) on the table to lighten things up. I knew at the time that this wasn't exactly right, but I also knew that we were light years ahead of where we started. Next, I decided I wanted to buy some new chairs for the space...

I immediately knew I LOVED them. After the new chairs were in place I knew I wanted to make a few more changes that would have a big impact. I really wanted to repaint the walls- I always felt like I never quite got the color just right in here and knew it needed updating. I originally painted it SW Debonair (same as Phoenix's room). A few years later one of my Instagram followers suggested Benjamin Moore Pikes Peak Gray, which I was skeptical about. I thought- well I don't want to paint this room grey... but turns out Pikes Peak Grey is the prettiest shade of muddy blue grey. I also knew I wanted to paint not only the walls this time, but the molding, trimwork, and the entire ceiling.