Best Of Home Interior: Creating a hip space from a traditional place

I recently received an email from Catherine Hopkins, from Theshinypebble about her dining room. Catherine's request? How the heck do I make my current dining room look more hip. Hula hoops aside, creating a hip dining room is all in the mix. (and sadly we aren't talking margaritas here) We are talking about bringing different items, from different styles and mixing it all up. Designers are rockstars at doing this. We don't like things to match or make sense, so we put random things together, and magic occurs! Don't have a professional designer to help you? Read my recent post on Designing a room~Where to start.

Catherines Dining Room

The Challenge: Traditional space that needs some hip flavor

The goal: Make it hip, fresh and updated

The prize: Margaritas anyone?

Ok, first on the agenda, Paint! The room is rich looking, however the dark furniture and bland walls are screaming, give me life! My suggestion:

Sherwinn Williams: 6179 Artichoke.

Second order of business, get rid of ALL the current accessories. The accessories Catherine has are lovely, but in order to make this room hip, the least expensive solution is to update the accessories. For your buffet, lets update your mirror, and get you some new lamps. This will add sparkle and bring eye candy into the room.

Barbara Cosgrove

Curtis Jere

Next, we need to focus on the dining table. Lets move your Captains chairs to another part of the house and switch them out for something more fresh and modern. This chair from Pottery barn (shown below) is the perfect solution to update a dining room. It is simple in design and generic enough to go with any style. Remember this when buying your next furniture piece. Always mix things up. Having an entire group of similar items is too much of a good thing. This is where style comes in. Remember my post on style? When you buy an entire collection of something, and everything matches, the theme becomes too literal. Be risk takers, and try different things; mix it up!

Pottery Barn

Next on our list, draperies. The windows need softness. They look naked, so we will add some beautiful textured silk draperies. This will add comfort, and make the room cozy for intimate dining with friends.

West elm

Now lets add some funk. Catherine has a wonderful sisal rug on the floor in her dining room. Lets layer it up with a fun and exciting stamped cowhide. This will add style, texture, and show your guests you like to have a little fun,

AB HOME

Now for a few finishing touches. Lets throw a pillow in the chair and add some artwork on either side of the hutch. Remember my post on scale? I give big kudos to Catherine for putting art work on either side of her hutch, (Designers love symmetry) but the scale is a bit off. Lets get something BIG. Remember students, GO BIG OR GO HOME! The artwork I selected below is great. These are 31x31 and will command attention next to that large hutch.

AB HOME AB HOME

Last but not least, the table accessories. I would like to add two canisters and a simple floral. A table runner can be added, but I did not find one that I just loved. Im sure there is one out there just waiting to be found!
(And a runner will add additional texture and can help glue the overall look together.)

ABHOME

AB HOME

And on the buffet, centered between the two Barbara Cosgrove lamps, I would put this beautiful mustard leather tray. Not only does this add spunk and glamour to the dining room, it can be used for serving yummy hors d' oeuvres. And how gorgeous would this be against the artichoke color! Bellisimo!