Category: Reno
A Closer Look at the Dining Room Wallpaper
My striking dining room owes its wow-factor to the stunning hand painted Chinese wallpaper and gold-leafed ceiling that envelopes visitors with its jewel box effect.
I’ve always been a hard core fan of Chinoiserie design and have admired the handiwork of companies like Gracie and De Gournay, but my passion for this type of wallpaper was cemented when I visited Rough Point, the estate of Doris Duke in Newport. Her music room had antique panels of Chinese wallpaper she had purchased at auction and it left such a magnificent and regal impression on me. (you can read about it in this blog post I wrote almost 3 years ago- you can’t say I’m not consistent!)
With my enduring passion for this type of wallpaper, I was very happy to stumble upon the work of Griffin and Wong a couple of years ago, whose sales operations is based right here in Canada in Vancouver. The design department of Style At Home was lucky enough to view a presentation from Douglas Bray and I fell even more in love with how the delicate illustrations shimmered right off the silky paper.
Categorized as: Dream Home, Jessica Claire Interiors, Reno, Style At Home
Tagged As: chinoiserie, dining room, doris duke, griffin and wong, wallpaper
Dining Room Before and After
One of the most dramatic transformations in my home was my dining room, thanks in large part to to the eye-catching Chinese hand painted wallpaper from Griffin and Wong. I’ll be going into more depth on the paper later this week, so for now let’s look at the furniture and lighting.
The original dining room in the house had lovely wainscoting with built-in cupboards on either side of the windows. There was also an arched niche in the centre of the room that could fit a hutch. All together the room was a decent size, but with my visions of entertaining large groups (my immediate family alone is double digits), we decided to add three feet to the room as part of the addition. That bonus length combined with removing the built-in’s allowed for a table that could sit twelve when extended. It also made room for a server, so with these main pieces space planned, I set out sourcing the perfect dining table and chairs, server and hutch.
I hunted down antique and vintage tables and chairs for months, but ultimately I realized it would be nearly impossible to find such a large antique table and suite of chairs that were in my price range. After resigning myself to shopping for new pieces, I was delighted to discover Carrocel Restorations not only fixed up old pieces in need of some love as their name implied, but also did a beautiful job custom finishing and upholstering reproductions that they stock.
Categorized as: Dream Home, Jessica Claire Interiors, Reno, Style At Home
Tagged As: antique, beresford, carrocel, chandelier, dining room, gold, griffin and wong, kravet, makeover, of things past, vintage, wallpaper
