A few weeks ago we revealed that my living room and my closet would talk and I am happy to report that I have another space to share with you: my dining room! All the spaces are adjacent to each other, so if you saw the last two blog posts, you may have seen a sneak peek or two, but it’s time to take a full tour of this funky little space and share everything I’ve done.
As a reminder, this apartment is a perfect jewel. The perfect location, walking to lots of fun spots, the moon, vintage charm, original tiles in the kitchen and bathroom, almost every room needed TLC clothes when I showed up. Let me show you…
Previous dining room
Yeah, it wasn’t a completely turnkey move-in situation…but my boyfriend, Austin, and I did a simple painting job throughout the apartment. It is evidence of why we should not underestimate the power of fresh, white paint.
It’s very good isn’t it? ! The beige brown walls weren’t that. Plus, this made a huge difference, as they were pretty banged if you look closely. However, it has made flooring defects more pronounced. We are lucky to have original hardwood floors in the apartment, but that is also pretty banged. But that wasn’t a big deal as I knew it could be covered with a rug and a large, long dining table (it’s because I personally draw the lines for repairing hardwood floors on rental).
I have explained in great detail the direction of my apartment design in my living room public, but the TLDR is this: We go to “single grandma who is back on the street and ready for a party”. I’m sure you’ll probably put it “Mallory, what does it really mean?”: vintage touch, modern touch, and lots of female energy – that’s the atmosphere!
Also take a look at its ancient AC units. It was so old and I didn’t even try to see if it worked (I thought it was broken and then it looked broken…the buttons are missing, and overall super sketchy lol). I laughed so hard when I finally realized I had pressed the button and actually cranked it… I was honestly shocked. All of this I knew I wanted to find a way to cover that pup, but still make sure it’s functional…it’s very eyebrowsy after all.
If you’ve been Follow me For a while you know I have something about leopard and tiger wallpapers. Take a look at the bathrooms of my old studio apartment. I’m still hooked on those walls. Something about the coolness that the leopard adds and the enormous amount of personality… I think it’s a lot of fun. So I sampled lots of different wallpapers, but in the end Sarah Sherman Samuel x Lulu and Georgia Tigger Jaquard Grasscross One In my mind (and from the moment this pattern fell). Originally, I was planning to go with the dark yellow one, but then I realized that this room was already quite dark during the day. And while it’s a great idea to get dark in a room without natural light, we went to Creamy White as I always work here from home and have a lot of times in dark yellow rooms every day. And I did it myself!!
Dining room progress
Obviously, this wallpaper is not skin and sticks. So I basically placed the regular wallpaper on the wall, but I did two things to make it easier to take it off later. 1. Layer the panels a little, lift the corners and sides easily, 2. Ideally, the next tenant wants to keep the wallpaper so it doesn’t need to be removed, but if you need to remove it, that’s not a big deal. Just use a steamer and a scraper. My last apartment wallpaper was also not skin and smelly and took about 3-4 hours to remove it, but I got my deposit back and it was fine.
Wallpaper can be a big investment (in time and money), depending on the type you get, but in my opinion it really has the biggest impact. In other words, look for yourself… (it’s coming out!)…
Rug | Dining chair | Dining table | wallpaper | chandelier | sconces | Art print | vase | Candle holder | Color paint
There she’s there! My dining room in her glory. Once the wallpaper has come up, I sampled lots of colors and found the perfect shade to complement – Shadow white with fallows and balls. It can sometimes be sunburned and captivated other eras, and it is so gorgh in every light! I then thought about adding fun molding under the chair rails, but maybe I’ll do that in phase 2, and it’s a rental and I’m not sure if it’s worth a big deal.
Dining table and chair I really grounded the entire space – I love the contrast between their modern shapes and the wallpaper with a more traditional sense. I wanted a good combination of old and new (read: sexy grandma). I (of course) swapped the light of my boobs for this gorgeous Soho home chandelierwith the perfect traditional/modern mix and I’ve been watching it for literally years.
So let’s chat about that ugly AC unit in the window…
My quick and easy fix to cover that window AC unit was to pop it in the cafe curtain. Functionally, it’s perfect. If you want to shine light through the window, you can slide it to one side. In the summer you can slide to the other side to use the AC unit. It was very helpful with an eyelash that was this ancient box in the middle of the window. In a perfect world, I didn’t have to have that AC and I would have had a gorgeous pinch plate floor-to-ceiling curtain because the cafe curtains aren’t on the same eyeliner as the chandelier, but the AC unit was so functional and in fact I liked being comfortable in my home, so we had to keep it up.
This rug It was very affordable – I needed a strange size (7×10) and I didn’t want to invest much in it. When I found this, I knew it was perfect for the space. Those zonse It’s a hardwired zonse, but there’s no junction box here, so I’ll just put it in. Rechargeable light bulb Among them, and I’m in love. They came from the Crate and Barrel x Athena Calderon collaboration and I have been watching them for a long time. I like to invest in lighting. I plan to bring it with me. The lighting in this space will definitely come to my next location or project.
I needed some big art in this space so I went through some Slim Aaron Print (My favourite photographer – I always love putting his work into my projects). I got it This 20×20 print And put it in a 30×30 frame – then I did a bit of DIY to make the framing look more expensive. I got 24×24 mats with 20×20 cutouts and 2 30×30 mats with 24×24 cutouts. I took one of the mats and drew a black outline with a sharpie on its edge. I then placed a second 30×30 mat on top to cover the imperfection. There is a black outline to note on every side. This is just the angle in this photo.
You might want to trade this frame for a gold/bronze antique-looking frame, but I haven’t found anything I like yet. Frames can be a big investment. So for now I’m using it This onein fact, it’s really great quality (and it’s real glass. It’s hard to find a big, affordable frame that doesn’t use acrylic).
Frame | Gold Corner | Music Center Vintage Postcard | Los Feliz Vintage Postcard |Candle holder (vintage)
On this wall here, I created a gallery of Vintage La/Ross Ferries postcards. It was reasonably priced. Please show me the breakdown…
Frame It was sold in bulk and averaged around $3 per piece (I got 9×12 for 3 packs), and since it doesn’t come with mats, I bought a lot of them Also (10 packs for $30), then I cut them down to size. I ended up tapeting a vintage postcard on top of the mat. Because they were clearly not cut out for postcards. After that, each postcard was between $3 and $15, but was found all on eBay.
Frame | Gold Corner | Music Center Vintage Postcard | Los Feliz Vintage Postcard
Then I wanted to make the frame a little more interesting so I added it to these gold corners. This was $10 for a pack of 12. Eight frames were needed to fill the entire wall.
- $3-15 per postcard
- $3 per frame
- $3 per mat
- $3 per frame to add gold corners
Therefore, each art + framing costs between $12 and $24. After doing math, I spent a total of $170 on the entire wall considering how much space the walls in this gallery would take up. If you’re looking for art – I highly recommend doing this 🙂
Leather chair | Living room rug | Drinking the table | Dining chair | mirror | Dining room rug | wallpaper | coffee table | chandelier | sconces | Cafe curtains | Curtain rod | Curtain ring | White paint colour
Well, we conclude. This is a shot showing where my living room/speakeasy is associated with the dining room. I love this photo – and That mirror It’s so perfect and bounces light back in the best way.
This is a reminder of a crazy transformation!
I’m there! I wanted to read this and thank you for looking at all the photos and thank you to everyone. And if you see my other publications too, thank you! It means the world will do this and I am very grateful. See you in the comments!
*design Mallory Wackerman
**photograph Sararigolia Trump
Source: Emily Henderson – stylebyemilyhenderson.com
