Is this your veranda?!

Can you imagine this being your veranda? The driftwood grey of the ceiling, and the sunlight streaming in makes it an easy journey in my imagination.

 In my head, it's over-looking the most divine Modern Country garden, tumbling roses, and smartly clipped topiary.

I'm having a moment for taupe-y grey gingham. mall touches here and there give me a big Cheshire cat kind of smile. 

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Our Dining Room Reveal!

Welcome to the full reveal of our 

Modern Country Dining Room!

Let's start right back at the beginning for a moment to how the room looked when we first were shown around our house....

See that yucky fireplace in the picture below? 
That was mine. 
Oh, yes, it was.

The fireplace in our dining room was attached directly to the wall with an orange varnished-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life pine fire surround. 

In fact, that goes for all the wood in the room.
Of which there was plenty.

So much, so wrong!

What's a girl to do? 

Aaaaaah! That's better.

At some point in the future, we'll tackle the kitchen and dining room head-on by ripping out and starting again so this was very much a makeover, rather than a full renovation.

I liked the existing grey stone hearth 
so we had the plinths lowered to sit on the stone. 

A smidgen of soft-industrial chic never goes amiss in my book.

I didn't want any orange pine so we painted all the woodwork Dulux White gloss. Nice and crisp against the lush new wall colour, Gregory's Den by Earthborn - a gorgeous Modern Country shade.

The wall between the wood and the fireplace caused endless discussions with, errrr...... me, myself and I. 

{Yes, you read that right.}



The three of us had fascinating debates.

 Should it be the greyish colour of the walls? 

Or white to match the mantelpiece? 

Or...or.... 

*head explodes*

I decided on 
matte black. 

And, you know what?

I LOVE IT!!



When we set out with this room, we knew we wanted a flow-through feel between the kitchen and the dining room, and I'm thrilled with the way the two rooms work together now.

As this is a room that we may structurally alter in the future 
we were keen not to do work that we would 
then have to undo in the long term.



Often, that can mean ending up compromising 
but in this case it was a very 
Modern Country Style workable solution 
and rather gorgeous too, if I may say so. 

Hurrah for paint!!

So, there you have it:
The full Before and After of our 
Modern Country Dining Room!

{If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them by email,
in the comments, or over on Modern Country Style's Facebook page.}

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Mirror, mirror on the wall....

I'd say we're nearly ready for a full Modern Country Dining Room reveal, don't you, sweetiepips? But before I go the full hog and bare all, I wanted to urge you, if you have a rather gloomy, North-facing space, like our dining room, to take the plunge and hang a massively, enormously, humungously large mirror.

You'll be a-maaaaazed at the magic that mirrors can spin out of their shimmery, shiny surfaces. 

It took me aaaages to find one I liked. We were somewhat limited by dimensions as I wanted the mirror to fill the blank space above our brand, spanking new, much-needed (check out the UG.LEE fella above) radiator cover. Lots of pretty but small mirrors around, I now know!! I looked all over for the perfect specimen and finally,finally, finally found one I loved.

It's a large (woohoo!) bevelled mirror with a wooden surround in burnt silver, and has the pretty bonus of gorgeous detailing carved into the wooden surround.

And, while it may sound super-poncy, burnt silver is a terrific colour - it manages to be warm and cool at the same time.

It was a nightmare to hang as it's so heavy. Our very handy handyman attached brackets onto the back, gouged into our walls (our poor, lovely walls getting a battering again) attached the brackets and carefully plastered over again.

Despite my very vague hand movements specifying that I wanted the mirror hung portrait-wise, it got hung landscape at first. I thought about keeping it that way, as it looked more than passable but decided to be a total fusspot and asked him to rehang it (poor man, poor walls!!).

So, was all the pain worth it?

Yes, oh yes, yessity-yes. Look at all that lovely sparkle bouncing around the room! It brings the whole space alive, injects lots of natural light, and looks gorgeous too, as well as filling a very blank wall! A multi-functional piece, if ever there was one, my friends.

Do you need a mahoosive mirror in your life?

Have I persuaded you?

{And if you loved this, don't forget to follow along for the full reveal this Friday!)

Love,

Sarahxxx

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Delicious Dining Room With A Modern Country Colour Scheme

Hey peeps,

How was your weekend? We had the most marvellous weather on Sunday afternoon, here in the Cotswolds, and I was able to make the very most of it by whiling away a few hours at a friend's beautiful garden. We swapped plants, tips, design ideas and generally had a very lovely time indeed.

How's this for a stunningly put-together Modern Country Dining Room?

I love the wall colour - I suspect Farrow and Ball's Lamp Room Gray, or Benjamin Moore's Gray Horse have been involved somewhere here.

Doesn't the grey look crisp and fresh in contrast with the woodwork and ceiling in pure white? I love the clever mix of brown's...the light, wardrobe, table blinds and that fake bird cage....

Yes, I said 'fake', 'bird' and 'cage'. Together. In a row. Never thought I'd get the chance to say that out loud. ;-)

This is another marvellous example of how a really simple colour palette - grey, white and brown; the classic Modern Country colour scheme - can make a room absolutely sing.

{Have you tried it yet?}

All images via House Beautiful

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Industrial Style Dining Room

This week, we'll be focussing on windows....

Let's start here:

The dining room is absolutely stunning. Feast your eyes on that enormous mirror, the magnificent table and those white chairs which soften the whole scheme.

I love the industrial feel of this space. The bare rick, the steel girders and the double (or is it triple?) height room.....BUT, I'll get to the point, what do you think about the undressed windows?

Yes, NAKED is what they are!

{*blush*}

The question on my mind is this: do all dining rooms needs some kind of window treatment...even if they are not overlooked?

Image via: Nicety

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How To Create A Stunning Dining Room Using Candles

Today we're going to take a look together at how to make your dining room look absolutely stunning using candle-light.

Using windlights is an easy, and relatively low cost way of adding sparkle and pizazz to any room but works especially well in the dining room where people are seated around a table for social activity.

Just take a look at these images to see how well this look works, even during daylight hours...and then grabs more and more of your attention as the night draws on. 

However, plonking a few Ikea tealights round and about just won't cut the mustard. won't do the room any favours. What you need is a showpiece. A focal point. Some real eye-candy to make the statement that this is a thought-out part of your lighting scheme and not just an after-thought add-on.

Here are five rules that will guide you through the process of how to create a real design statement using windlights:

Choose stunning centrepieces.

This is an essential part of dressing up your dining space with candlelight. Choose carefully. You want something that really catches the eye but mustn't overly dominate the table. Look out for gorgeous details, beautiful design and built-to-last workmanship.{The two we use on our dining table are Lombok Seta Rectangular Windlights....and I've just noticed they're on sale!}

Use symmetry

I love the Country-idyll concept of using candles for evening lighting: romantic and soft.....BUT by using choosing windlights that have particularly strong design, and highlighting that design with the help of symmetry, you can create a very Modern take on it to ensure you have the best of both worlds. Yes, my sweets, that's the joy of Modern Country.

Size matters

Keep items on the table low so that you can actually see each other. This is such a common mistake (just check out some of the gorgeous but impractical images in this post). That's where these Lombok windlights are perfect because they're substantial in the right ways - long and heavy (so stable on the table) but, importantly, not too tall. Most windlights in this style are either simply too enormous to sit comfortaly on the table or too tinsy-tiny to encourage the eye-popping, stunner of a look that we're after.

Place your windlights at either end of the table.

Making the most of symmetry has a dual purpose as this allows you to keep the centre of the table free of clutter to leave room for people passing the wine, clearing plates, leaning forwards for intimate chatter and all the other lovely things you want to encourage at your dinner parties....

Use other candles around the room.

Think of using candles as building up layers of visual delight. When you have created a beautifully strong focal point with your choice of windlights for your table, you can use lots of other candles around the room to compliment this first layer.

And there you have it....

Modern Country Dining at its very best: 

relaxed, informal and oh-so-stylish. 

Enjoy!

All images: mine

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