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Any Gentle Reader who sends me an e-mail saying, "I've had a glass of wine and am getting ready for Monday night football..." has a special place in my heart.


Here's some background information from her original e-mail, to which, tragically, I couldn't respond right away:

I just discovered your blog and LOVE IT. I'm hoping to write something witty or interesting enough to get your attention and advice. Tonight, I'm going to ask about the dining room.

Background: I live in a beautiful two story Victorian home built in the late 1880s in a historic neighborhood (Grant Park) near downtown Atlanta. There are only a few real two stories in the neighborhood (mostly bungalows) and I have one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood, so I feel like I need to respect the house and its history.

The house was renovated in the 80's ...The next owners did all kinds of unsexy but important work on the house like reinforcing the floor joists and replacing bad exterior boards and repainting...

And here's the next e-mail:

Hey Annie!
I've had a glass of wine and am getting ready for Monday night football, so I thought I'd try to narrow down the request for help in my previous email...

I'm working backwards, as I already have curtains and paint colors I love in my dining room.


The question: what to do for the rug and accessories? The pictures don't make the paint look great because it's so dark and I'm a bad photographer. Paint on walls is Restoration Hardware "Slate." Paint on ceiling is Duron Millenium Plantation Beige.

Floors 100+ year old 5" pine plank.


I've got a great old table with original chairs and my husband's mom's china and hutch:



Only other thing to consider is the green tiles in the fireplace:


I hate the fireplace surround, but that's a conversation for another day (I think). I'm all ears on ideas for rug color and accessories. Also, I could also use help in deciding which metalic collor to use (silver, gold, platinum, bronze, etc.) wherever possible.

Best, Jenna


Dear Jenna,

And this is why we always start with the rug :) No, no: I'm not here to chastise. My job is to help. Happily, we have options.

Your house is beautiful, and I absolutely love these wacky drapes! The back story is so great that I'm going to do a separate post about it, if it's ok with you.

I also like the wall color, and good for you for painting the ceiling a warm beige. (You know white ceilings aren't my fave, and they would have made this room feel very cold.)

That's our primary challenge here: warming up the room. The beige ceiling, gorgeous reddish floors, and wood furniture help a lot, but a rug will help, too. Think warm: camel, gold, orange, dark pink...red is going to be awfully traditional, which leads me to...

Our second challenge, which is adding a dash of modern. You could use a traditional deep red Oriental or Persian rug in here, and it would look lovely. But we don't want your house to feel like a museum. (Or maybe you do, but you shouldn't. You're too young and cool.)

CLASSIC UNSTODGY SOLUTION

A seagrass or sisal rug is a perfectly acceptable, no-risk solution. It's not thrilling, but it's fresh, contemporary without unwanted edginess, and visually if not physically warm.

Choose a herringbone pattern to offset the casual feel, and please do NOT add a contrasting binding (border, edging, etc.) - too beachy. Omit a binding altogether if you can, actually.

From a practical standpoint, it's easy to move dining room chairs over flatweave rugs. It's extremely important that you use a rug pad, though; over time, sisal and seagrass act like sandpaper on wooden floors.

A BIT MORE COLORFUL BUT STILL SAFE SOLUTION

A custom-cut carpet in an allover pattern is another option. It's no edgier than seagrass, but it's uncontroversial and effective. Robertex is terrific; I use them all the time for wall-to-wall wool carpeting and stair runners. Look at a pattern such as Maggie in the color Tuxedo Park:


A distinct advantage to this approach is that you can get exactly the size you need. Very important in a dining room: the chairs have to be able to slide away from the table without slipping off the rug.

BOSSY SOLUTION

Naturally, I'd love to see you go all out with a contrasting color to jazz things up. Madeleine Weinrib Atelier is the place to go for beautiful, colorful cotton flatweaves. (Dash & Albert is great for cotton stripes, but that's too beachy for you.)

Here is Madeliene Weinrib's Rose Mandala:


Coral Otto:


Orange Brooke, which would blend into the floor in a good way:


The Indigo Chi Chi Kari is subtle and elegant:

A bit more whimsical is the Stilton Jellybaby - the background color will NOT match the walls exactly, and that's ok:


And for the bossiest of all, the Celery Olivia. I actually love this color with grey, and remember, it will be underfoot, not right in your face:


Colorful art - watercolors, oils, pastels - will be critical in pulling the room together. I'm picturing contemporary but representational pieces in gilded frames. No mirror unless it's in a big fat gold frame...even then, though, mirrors can be cold.

Good luck, Jenna! Please let us know what you decide.

Hi Annie,
I have just moved into a room in a rented townhouse. The good news is that the room is quite large at 19’ by 12’ and has three nice-sized windows.


The bad news (part 1) is that the bath is wallpapered in this so-hideous-it’s-almost-great wallpaper, which has a silver geometric pattern with a light blue, sage green and pale pink floral pattern over the top of it.


The bad news (part 2) is that I can’t take it down and I can’t paint so the walls will stay apartment white, but I have lots of art so it’s not that bad....

My dilemma is that I’m not quite sure how to construct a color palette that I can live with (I’m so not a pink person) or what scale of pattern will work for the bedding, rug and windows given how busy that wallpaper is...

I forgot to mention that I’m a total mid-century fanatic and constantly have to pull myself back from the brink of way-too-period in order to keep it contemporary. So looking forward to your reply -

All the best, Alison


Dear Alison: Until I read the "mid-century fanatic" part, I'll admit I was getting a little panicky. But now I have a plan. (Why can't you paint, exactly? Because you'll have to re-paint before you leave? It's still worth considering, chickie...it's amazing what a bunch of friends can accomplish in a weekend when plied with pizza and beer.)

But assuming there's a really good reason you can't paint :) , let's do this:

Ignore the wallpaper.

I appreciate that the hideousness of the wallpaper has sent you into a tailspin. It's pretty bad. Not old enough to be kitschy, not new enough to be cheeky. It's just bad. BUT it's in your bathroom/dressing area, not your bedroom. And although you can glimpse it from your bedroom, it won't dominate the space unless you let it.

And we won't let it.

Our new palette is brought to you courtesy of this inspiration picture:

Love the green for you. The painting is blue-green, the painting on the left has yellow-green in it, the chairs are yellow, your furniture can take care of the orangey color...


...and your walls provide the wide expanses of white. Think big blocks of color; I wouldn't do pattern at all since you have a lot of art.

You know I usually suggest starting with the rug. That's especially true if the rug has a pattern with more than one color in it. For your bedroom, I suggest a BIG, solid color shag or Flokati rug in a yellow-green or a real blue-green. (Not sage or mint).

I wish your 3 windows had a single bar going across the top, but you're not willing to change that in a rental, are you? Shoot. Well, it was worth asking.

Let's hang floor-to-ceiling drapes (or in this case, floor-to-curtain-rod-that's-already-there drapes) in solid yellow. I say this partially because an off-the-shelf solid color is going to be easier to find than a good pattern. (Now, if you're handy with a sewing machine and see a fabulous HUGE SCALE patterned fabric in yellow, green, and other gutsy colors, then go for it.)

Barring that, let's just do yellow drapes however we can find them: cotton, linen, velvet...I don't care. Hello - a pair from Ikea just waltzed in.

What was your name, dear? Aina? Aina, meet Alison. You two are going to be very happy together.

After that, I suggest buying white bedding, hanging your art, and then filling in color gaps - orange, brown - with pillows on your bed. The nubby fabric on these Modern Materials Design pillows has a mid-century feel...and naturally I love the bold colors:


And these are from InMod.com:

Good luck, Alison! Please keep us posted.

Inspiration picture taken from Coco+Kelley's photostream on Flickr. Green shag rug from RugsUSA.com. First pillow picture through Grassroots Modern.