In our 2+ year renovation journey, the dining room was actually one of the first spaces we completed. The most challenging part of this transformation was sourcing the Pierre Frey mural which welcomes every guest with a fresh bouquet of flowers.
The “Mille Fleurs” mural was in regular circulation on my Pinterest boards well before I found this house. It was the essential ingredient in serving up the beautiful dish that is the dining room. I pulled the dark aubergine wall colour from the palette of the paper, Brinjal by Farrow & Ball in dead flat finish. The paint transforms throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky. It creates an intimate atmosphere for sharing a meal with friends and family.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through some of the links in this post, you won’t pay a penny more, but we’ll get a small commission, which helps keep the bar stocked.
BEFORE
AFTER
Aside from the mural, nearly everything in the room is vintage. The travertine dining table dates back to the 1960s or ’70s – sourced from a vintage seller in Montreal that I stumbled across on Instagram. The tension rod shelves are from Ottawa’s Green Wall Vintage. The Cesca dining chairs were a steal on Facebook Marketplace. The champagne bucket was procured from a vintage seller in Toronto.
For the few new items: I purchased the rug from an independent seller on Etsy and the light fixture is by Troy Lighting was handpicked by my friend and interior designer Melanie Neault of Launch Your Space.
The pink velvet curtains are from CB2 and the curtain rod and tiebacks were a vintage-inspired find from Anthropologie. The brass dimmer switch is Buster + Punch.
SHOP THE ROOM
by Troy Lighting
Instead of pasting up the entire mural as a single piece, I opted to frame them with wood trim to make it feel more like artwork. The panels help to break up the dark wall colour and add dimension to the room. As our house is comprised entirely of lathe and plaster, the wall required quite a lot of prep work before it was ready to paint and paper. Michael fastidiously skim-coated the entire wall to smooth out cracks and imperfections in the plaster, sanded, primed, and painted.
We left the wallpaper installation to the professionals from Silver Brook Design Centre and Michael finished the job by mitering the wood trim, painting it, and nailing it into the wall – being careful not to damage the paper.
We captured the entire transformation in an Instagram Reel if you’d like to recreate the look in your own home.
It was a fair bit of work in all but we couldn’t be happier with the end result.
The tension rod shelves hold just a smattering of my bar collection – from vintage glassware to cocktail books, booze, and other treasures. I keep a few home bar essentials on hand in the dining room in case of a cocktail emergency but the hundreds of bottles that constitute the majority of my collection live in the (yet to be renovated) basement.
Keeping with tradition, I’ve organized the shelves by colour to create an eye-pleasing array of spirited tchotchkes.
I’d love to know what your favourite part of this refinished space is! Let me know in the comments below.
I love absolutely everything about this transformation – well done!!!