French Country Dining Room

This may look like a typical French Country Dining Room, but it’s so much more than that. We didn’t want just another formal dining room, we wanted a gathering space.

A formal dining room always makes me feel stuffy. Like I need to be dressed up and no kids allowed. But that’s not our life. We have kids, we love people and connections and we feel like we are who we are because of what we’ve been through and the people who came before us. We wanted our dining room to reflect that.

All photos by one of my favorite people ever, Becky Kimball. She’s kind of the best and she travels so don’t worry if you aren’t in Utah.

Here’s the before…

And after!

I know it sounds simple, but for Cade and I food is a tool that brings us together. And not just us, but everyone, so our dining room needed to be about the people, not the food.

I’d found the perfect paint with Sherwin-Williams, in fact, if you check out our Office Reveal it’s a different white that we also have and love in our house. We are a little obsessed with Sherwin-William.

They totally custom made this white paint of the year for us and I can’t tell you the compliments we get on the color! Everyone loves it!  And by color I mean lack of because of course it’s white, but it’s a really pretty white! It adds a soft, quiet feeling to the room that doesn’t distract from anything else. I wasn’t sure how to break it down for you all since it’s custom so I took a picture and you can take that in to any store and they will make it.

Our table was a huge stress for us. We searched high and low and couldn’t find anything that felt like us. One night we went out on a date and swung into Four Chairs on a whim. Winner, winner!! We found the most beautiful round table.

I honestly hadn’t even considered a round table as traditional dining room tables are long and rectangular, but as soon as we saw the Monroe Dining Table at Four Chairs, we knew that a round table was perfect for our family. There’s something so conversational about a round table versus a long table. Sure, they are elegant, but it’s so frustrating to try to enjoy an evening with loved ones when you can’t hear someone at the opposite end of the table, but a round table lets you look into everyone’s eyes and faces and really connect with one another.

The chairs were a quick purchase as while check out at the store was happening an employee mentioned these striped, upholstered Monson chairs that she was loving lately. Another win! We snagged a few and everything arrived about 2 weeks later.

Once we had the main furniture I knew our room needed to remain soft so we chose this Maui Chunky Loop rug from RugsUSA.com. I love how thick and well woven it is. It doesn’t make the room busy but still adds texture and character.

The chandelier!! How we love our Imperial Castle chandelier. It’s not over the top bling, but it still is a piece that makes you stop and take it all in. We are still die-hard Lighting Connection fans. It’s where we find all of our lighting needs and we are so, so happy with how it turned out.

Guess what!! You get a discount code too! Use OHSWEETBASIL15 for 15% off at check out.

We used Lighting Connection’s Sizing Guide which you’ll find attached to any light. It’s so, so helpful. Not only is it broken down by where your light will hang, like over a table etc, but you can also use their sizing calculator which will allow you to enter in the information for your room and it will tell you what size to get. I’m totally fine to try things and return them, but if I can avoid it in one easy step, you better believe I’ll do it.

The artwork is custom-made by our talented friend and artist, Lana from Lana’s shop. Her work is fresh and alive in a way that really breathes life into your room.

As soon as we get our shop up and running we will load these watercolors in, so that you can buy them, but in the meantime, head over to her site and she can create anything and everything.

We love our French Country Dining room and hope you all do too!