Designing Our Dining Room Finishes

We’ve been taking one room at a time in the new house and choosing all of the finishes such as lighting, flooring, and wall and ceiling accents. We recently tackled the dining room.

Even though there is not a lot going on in this room compared to others, we want to make sure we get it right!

Our dining room extends off from the kitchen to the back of the house. Just like the kitchen, it has a 17ft vaulted ceiling. Here is a shot of it from the kitchen.

It has plenty of windows, including a huge 9ft tall window, that provides great views of the surrounding trees. From the dining room, there is also access to the covered porch.

Beams

We struggled in deciding what type of beams to do in our kitchen and dining room, and even posted the question on Instagram to get a little input.

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Since I was able to talk Henry into vaulted ceilings in the kitchen, this means that we will need beams in there to add some interest. This will add some extra cost, but I think it will be worth it. Now to decide how to run the beams. We can have them follow the vault like picture one, run them straight across like picture two, or go a little more complicated like picture three. Swipe to see each example. . . Kitchen 1: @jeanstofferdesign Kitchen 2: @roundtreeconstruction Kitchen 3: @studiomcgee . . . #kitchendesign #kitchenisland #kitchendecor #houseandhome #myhousebeautiful #woodbeams #vaultedceiling #homedesigns #countertops #mybhg #houzz #beams

A post shared by Brooke(&Henry) (@plankandpillow) on Mar 11, 2019 at 11:15am PDT

Getting feedback from so many people really helped and the overwhelming majority thought that we should have the beams follow the vault of the ceiling, I have to say that we agree! I think this will add just the right amount of visual interest to the high ceilings. See the image below for an idea of what they will look like.

We briefly considered doing solid reclaimed beams, but their beauty far outweighs their practicality. They are super expensive to buy and install. So we’ll be constructing the box beams on site, and staining them so they have a light weathered look.

Lighting

Since the scale of the dining room is large, we knew that we would need a large light fixture in the middle of the room hanging over the table. We chose the Huxley pendant from Troy Lighting. It’s 44 inches in diameter and has a nice woven organic look.

Flooring

The hardwood that we’re using throughout the majority of the house will extend into the dining room. It’s called Sea Smoke by ADM Flooring. It’s a light colored 10″ wide oak plank.

Walls

In the dining room, we’ll be doing wood planks on the walls, but not the usual nickel gap boards that we commonly refer to as shiplap. It will be more like what you see on the walls and ceiling of this living room:

I like the irregular gaps and spaces that are created with this type of board.

In the dining room, as well as 90% of the rest of the house, we’ll be using Sherwin Williams Pure White on the walls ceiling and trim.