Kitchen/Dining Room Decor?

[kherrmann3]

Hello, all!

I figured I could throw a topic out here and see if anyone is more creative than me! I have lived at my apartment for over a year, now, and I am bored to tears with having a WHITE, PLAIN dining room . I want to redecorate (at least add some wall hangings, paintings, posters, metal art, ANYTHING). I pretty much just want to add stuff to the walls because I don't have much room. It's a plain, white room with an oval dinner table, four chairs, & a medium-to-dark oak ceiling fan. I have the zebra finches in there (in the corner) and a little light-pine-colored cabinet to hold my "office supplies". The dinner table is dark-oak (walnut) tone on top with hunter-green legs. Two of the chairs are that color (wood seat, green back & legs) and the other two are lighter (light pine) wood with the green accents.

Here is the room layout (overhead). Please forgive the "crappiness" of it, I don't have my laptop, otherwise I would just take a picture

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

*= Open into another room.
#= Table - There is one chair on each side.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
|Finches Cabinet |
| |*
| |*
| ############ |* <-- From Kitchen
| ############## |*
| ############ |*
| |*
| |
| |
| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
************************
^ Entire wall is open to TV room

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I have decided that I DO NOT WANT the dining room "theme" to be Italian kitchen, fat little chefs, wine, roosters/barnyard, or food in general.

The other rooms of my apartment are themed, as well. Mine & Will's bedroom is Asian-themed, our bathroom is palm trees and macaws (Will LOVES the macaw statue that stares at you while you're on the toilet :eyeroll and our TV/sitting room is "potpourri". It's not like the smelly stuff, it's just whatever is left over from other decorations elsewhere lol

So basically, that's it. I don't know what to do with this dining room, and I am SO TIRED of it being plain. I almost just started decorating it with African Safari things. THAT wouldn't have gone over well lol

HELP!!!

 

[LedaHartwood]

What about Eastern/ India? you seem to already have an exotic/tropic theme in your house. You could have an elephant center peace. Red, gold and brown are warmer colores that make people feel homie and warm. Nothing says love like a cozy dinner sit-down

Maybe a large texture painting on the wall to the left of the finches (the wall you face as you walk into the room from the kitchen?

 

[kherrmann3]

I will have to run that one past Will.

I like it, but he wanted swords/knives & such. He collects them, but I don't want our walls to be pointy and dangerous like stucco.

 

[pinksalamander]

I also love the Indian theme. My Dad's dining room is themed alot like that. The table is really chunky dark wood, the colour of the walls is magnolia with one small part in a deep orange. They have loads of dark woods and little silky, exotic looking cushions. They also have a lovely runner on their table that looks like its made out of sari's

You could also do it Parisian style. White furniture with floral carvings. I saw a home décor programme (yes... I watch them) where they had 2 white walls, one in this steely grey blue and the other in this gorgeous yellow wallpaper with big steely grey flowers. It looked fantastic. They had all lovely detailed mirrors.. it was so nice! I wonder if I can dig it out from somewhere.

Fran :hearts :brownbunny

 

[kherrmann3]

Will said maybe. He's not wild about the bright colors

Maybe I should just extend my Asian theme into the dining room. It would give me an excuse to go to Chicago's China Town!

 

[JadeIcing]

What about the indian but more deep deep reds, purples, blues and greens.

 

[kherrmann3]

Everything in our house is pale. I'm not one for vivid colors or dark ones, for that matter. I should probably try to be a bit more bold, but I just am not sure about it

 

[kirst3buns]

Do you have a Pier One near you? Maybe just browsing through the store will give you some good ideas. Sometimes I find just one thing that really strikes my fancy and provides inspiration. Given your more exoctic themes, Pier One or a World Market type store might be just the thing to browse.

 

[RexyRex]

I :heartsPier One. I have a very eclectic decorating style so I doubt I would be of any help! Good luck on what you decide, I'd love to see pics once you are finished.

 

[kherrmann3]

Heh... I have a Pier One about 10 minutes away. I'm cheap, though. Will makes all sorts of Jewish jokes while shopping with me (somewhere in my heritage, there were a few Jewish folk). I learned how to shop wisely (for the most part) but Will just HAS to make fun of me for it. That's OK, I'm irritating him 'cause I'm celebrating Hannukah this year ANYWAYS... I like cheap decorating. In my bedroom, my most expensive decoration was $15. That is the HUGE flippin' Oriental fan above our bed. It's wider then the full-size bed . I am the bargain queen...

I've always wanted each room in my house to be themed differently. I want a Southwestern room, "Up North (Der Hey!)" room, and a Celtic/Irish room. None of those are good dining room ideas *pout*. I like the Indian (India-Indian (as I had to call it so Will wasn't getting confused with the Native-American thing)) ideas, and I have placemats to go with it lol. I have to keep it so it KIND OF goes with my dishes, too I got them at Wal*Mart (I'm CHEAP! ) This what they look like...



I really like "ugly" Earth-tones. Greens/browns are my favorite colors...

 

[Brandy456]

I agree with LedaHartwood.

And Puta little Elephant asa centerpeice with flowers..

 

[RexyRex]

Pier 1 can be cheap if you go at the right times. I don't pay full price for ANYTHING. My fav buy there were these orange hand blown glasses with red streaks in it. It's hard to explain, but they are awesome. They were normally $9ea....I got them for $1.50ea

 

[Becca]

Do we get pictures when you've decided and finished? :biggrin2:

 

[kherrmann3]

Oh yes! Of course there will be pictures!

I have to wait for Best Buy to ship me my new charger so I can put the pictures on my laptop... Jerks...

I am going to go to Kohl's this afternoon. I have a gift certificate there. I like to haunt the clearance area

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I love the idea of having a different part of the world as the inspiration for each room! My apartment, sadly, doesn't have a theme at all. The bathroom is the best decorated room in the house, it's all flowery. I really like decorating and having things coordinate, but we're on such a budget that a lot of our stuff was given to us and the rest was acquired very inexpensively. I tell myself that when we make more money, I can decorate the house nicely! I like that you aren't doing any of those themes you listed in the first thread, some of them are kinda cute but they're all so overused

I don't see why you couldn't make the kitchen southwestern. That seems like it would be a really workable choice to me. You could do lots of chiles or those little dancing people (know what I'm talking about?) and get placemats that look like those blankets.

 

[kherrmann3]

OOO! I like the chili's idea! I cook with habanero chilis all the time!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Are you making any progress with what theme you want for your dining room? I love this kind of stuff!

This morning right after I woke up and was still lying in bed, I finally thought of how I want to decorate my kitchen. This will have to be after we move somewhere else since my current kitchen is so tiny. I want to paint the walls a light yellow-cream color, the break room where I work was just painted this color the other day. It's a neutral color, but I think very attractive and really brightens up the windowless room. I want to have decorative things rather sparse- not bare, but just splashes of color, particularly red and blue.

I want the "theme" to be vaguely Chinese. I took 2 semesters of Chinese last year and I've always had a fascination with China. A couple months ago, Paul and I put together a puzzle that is a drawing of a Chinese New Year parade in a large city. I really like the picture, and plan to glue it together and hang it on the wall. You wouldn't realize it was Chinese unless you actually looked at the puzzle. Sunflowers are my favorite flower, and last night at Wal Mart of all places, I found a framed print, a drawing of a large bowl of sunflower heads. It's quite pretty, and the bowl the sunflowers are in is white with a blue Chinese dragon on it. It doesn't come out and smack you in the face as being Chinese. I'd like to try to find a big white bowl with blue Chinese paintings on it like in that picture, and put it on the table with fruit in it or something. Then I'll keep my eyes peeled for 1 or 2 other "vaguely Chinese" wall things, and flesh it out with a couple small red and blue items to go on the counters or on top of the cupboards or whatever. My red KitchenAid mixer will look nice on the counter too! I may even be able to fit in some reference to Asian elephants- I love elephants :biggrin2:

Never would have thought I'd find inspiration early in the morning from a $6 framed print from Wal Mart.

 

[kherrmann3]

SnowyShiloh wrote:

I'd like to try to find a big white bowl with blue Chinese paintings on it like in that picture, and put it on the table with fruit in it or something.

Do you have any secondhand/Goodwill type stores near you? Those are AWESOME places to check out. Same with antique shops. Things only have to be 50 years old to be considered antique (I tease my mum about that all the time :biggrin2. I have collected a new Chinese ginger jars and vases from the St. Vincent DePaul around here (thrift store). Also, rummage sales are good for them too

Everything in my bedroom is Chinese/Oriental in general. I am a master of these things lol

As for my kitchen, I basically just cleaned it LOL. I should take pictures to show everyone what I am up against! lol

I did find a painting (that came home with me, promptly). I got it at St. Vinnie's I love that place. It's a poster of a painting by Salvador Dali (my favorite!). I am going to be hanging it in the dining room soon. It's called "Paysage aux Papillons" (Landscape with Butterflies). It was $5 for the poster & frame I have yet to frame and hang up my poster of Dali's "Swans Reflecting Elephants".

Paysage aux Pappilons

This is the poster for the dining room...

Swans Reflecting Elephants

This one is going in the sitting room (where the TV is). This room is connected to the dining room. :biggrin2: