Hi, hello & welcome back, sweet friends πΒ What a Summer it’s been and the official mark of 6 months living in Charlotte. Time has truly flown and with finally feeling like I’m on the heels of being settled in, I am so excited to share the latest room update: jeweled toned dining lounge!
When thinking about this room, I knew I wanted to go equal parts bold and comfy. When I found David’s wallpaper with Chasing Paper, honoring the wonderful women in his life, I knew that I had found the absolute perfect match. Seriously y’all, this wallpaper is what dreams are made of! The quality is outstanding and the colors are even more beautiful person. Something I really love is when the light changes throughout the day, the wallpaper shift from blue hues to green hues and back again. With all the colors, I had a lot of play space to get creative with accents, texture and weight of curtains, furniture pieces and art. And y’all, I completely went for it and have zero regrets! Let’s get into it π
Just by luck, I happened to be looking for velvet curtains to warm up the space in either the peacock color I have or the blush pink in the wallpaper flowers. I kept going back and fourth on colors but when I found a blush pink bench online, I knew the peacock curtains would be perfect. One night while I was looking on FBMP for another item, I stumbled upon six, out of the eight I needed, curtains in the right color and length for $50 total. Given that curtains can range $25-$150 per panel, I truly lucked out with this curtain find. Even though it’s fairly warm here and I don’t need the velvet to actually keep in heat, I love that velvet can always make a room feel more intimate and cozy. And with wanting this room to feel like a lounge, the curtains were the perfect start.
Literally a week later I learned the blush pink bench wouldn’t arrive for 6 weeks and so I went back to Facebook Marketplace hoping to find another gem. I knew that having an oval dining table would mean “head” of the table chairs and that seating arrangement just felt too traditional for me. Instead, with a bench on one side of the table, there’s technically no “head” of table and the flow feels less frigid. And to my surprise y’all, someone was literally selling a bench almost the same color as the curtains for $100 and was willing to deliver before they moved out of town. I do need to get the legs of the bench cut down a few inches to match the heigh of the orange chairs but altogether, I had such incredible luck finding not only amazing pieces but pieces that are nearly color matched to the wallpaper.
With the warm lounge vibe I was going for, I knew I needed fun and cool art all around the room just like you would see in a cool lounge in middle of your favorite city. Luckily, I started to build a fun art collection while I was in Austin and had more space to design. The three current pieces in this room are some of my absolute favorites in my collection. Each are colorful and quirky and complement the playfulness I hope friends feel when we have dinner parties for hours on end in this room. In my Austin apartment, these pieces were in different rooms such as the kitchen, hallway and guest bath but I absolutely adore these three together in this room.
So far, I haven’t hung any pieces on the wall and for now, will keep things this way for the casualness and freedom to change without much fuss. I still have a large wall, where the flower and wine glass photos were taken, that is completely empty. On that wall, I am considering hanging art but also like that when I have friends over, if they want to take pictures in this room, they basically have the best built-in backdrop in the South.
Similar to the art, I am so excited to have my tried and true, Four Hands flutted sideboard in this room. If y’all reminder, this sideboard was my first large purchase in the Austin industrial loft condo. I so desperately needed storage and this piece of furniture held not only my china but various hosting items from candlesticks to tablebooks to candles. In this new house, I have more kitchen storage for glasses and candlesticks/tabletop items plus space in my office to keep all my candles. All that to say, this sideboard is now officially only dining items: fine china, melamine plates, teacups and serving plates. I worried a little if something so industrial could work in this very traditional home but honestly, I couldn’t love it more.
And finally friends, this room would not be complete with a bar…or two. As an avid host, my timesaving, efficiency hacking and crowd-pleasing tip is to have several ways guest can serve themselves drinks. Don’t get me wrong, it is soΒ fun when you get to try out new cocktails for friends but honestly, that usually only works well when having three or less friends over. Once you have more than that, it makes more sense to allow everyone to grab what they want with you providing options. Sometimes I’ll only have champagne and canned cocktails on ice to avoid mess and make for speedy clean-up, especially when hosting friends for a lunch or brunch and/or when you’re hosting friends with not a lot of notice. However, for dinner parties, having a few bar options are great given that people may drink one-two drinks over a three to four hour time period.
The sideboard serves as a liquor bar with bottles, mixers, bar tools and a decanter of water (also crucial when hosting). While the freestanding bar serves as a wine bar on the inside with several different bottles of red wine and a ton of glass options with a small cocktail station on the top made up of glasses, fruits and bar tools. In addition to the office bar and my usual style of having a bottle of champagne upon arrival or guest and canned drinks options, I am truly living one of the golden rules of hosting: never let your guests get thirsty.
The one corner you don’t see much of here is what I would call a prep corner. It holds a skirted table with pretty flowers but when hosting, serves as space for all the dinner platters, extra water, napkins and where we can place items that we no longer need from the table. Even though my kitchen is close to this room, is it super small and there’s nothing I hate more than having people squeezed in my kitchen when I’m hosting. I know, I know, people believe the kitchen is the heart of the home but in my home, the heart is a combination of the living and dining room over the kitchen. Since I don’t cook, I treat the kitchen more as a “dirty kitchen” where I can store extra items during the party I don’t want people to see and where I can make a bit of a mess throughout the night.
Okay friends, I could go on forever about this space but all in all, I absolutely love how this room turned out and can’t wait to host many dinner parties with friends and family in this room. I am also super grateful for my partnership with Chasing Paper, who graciously gifted me the wallpaper to bring this room to life. Everything I can find is linked above and below in a few spots so you can shop this space and make your dining or living room a jeweled toned lounge like me.
Thanks so much for reaching y’all! Talk soon -xoxo, Azanique <3
