Dining Room Paint Makeover
See how a slight color change can transform the look of a room!

Ah, the dining room.
This was probably the room that has taken the longest to come together in the three years we have lived in this home. No matter what I just didn’t love it.

This was the dining room when we purchased the home. It needed a *wee* bit of updating!
We had the entire house painted before we moved in, you can see all those crazy old paint colors here. Because we were paying for such a large amount of painting in a quick turnaround time we ended up using three different shades of gray: Agreeable Gray, Dorian Gray, and Chelsea Gray, all from Sherwin Williams.

It definitely made a difference right away, and after getting rid of those window treatments and changing out the light fixture, the room pretty much stood as is for the past 2.5 years.

I loved our dining set from World Market (similar set here) and the antique server but the colorful gallery wall and everything else was pretty blah. I knew I wasn’t in love with it but wasn’t sure what to actually do about it.

I switched rugs, played with accessories, and nothing helped. It was time to turn to the paint.
Because the entire house was gray I wanted to brighten up the dining room and set it apart from the rest of the house. I chose Sherwin Williams Snowbound, which is a creamy neutral white.

The paint change was exactly what I was looking for! It really brightened up the room and gave me the inspiration to finish it off.

We removed the gallery wall which had always struck me as a hodge-podge and we replaced it with a new painting by local Savannah artist Bert John (who also had pieces in the HGTV Dream Home tour I shared in January.)

I love the gold leaf border on the painting, isn’t it gorgeous?

I cleared the vast majority of “stuff” off of the server and left a small gold tray that picks up the painting’s gold accents along with a few of our favorite cocktail ingredients and a small orchid that conveniently shared similar colors with the painting.

On the back wall of the dining room is an antique wood and glass bookcase that belonged to my husband’s grandfather.

It’s difficult to get a good picture of this because it sits opposite all of the windows and the reflection is significant!
I tried to color block the books inside a bit. Scattered in with the books are sentimental mementos and photos of family.

This photo in the bookcase is of our wedding day at White Point Gardens in Charleston, SC…it was just the two of us on a Tuesday morning during his two weeks of leave from Afghanistan….memories…❤️

Above the bookcase is a print I found on Etsy of the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza, Italy. Randy was stationed there when we met and we lived there when we were first married. I love decorating our home with sentimental art.


The cotton and oyster shells remind me of our local area. We actually found all these oyster shells in the woods in our backyard, the previous owners must have had oyster roasts and thrown the shells into the woodline!

And finally, no room is complete without a fiddle leaf fig (at least that’s what I tell my husband!)



What do you think of the progression of the dining room? Let me know in the comments!