Dining Room Walls & Window Treatments

The deep orange color of the walls is a wonderful color for the dining room.

Express yourself in the Dining Room! Go with rich deep colors to make it cozy and intimate. As we learned in lesson One, red and rich terra-cotta are perfect colors for the dining room, but any color will work, just be daring in your application of it.

Paint or Wallpaper

You can go with either paint or wallpaper in the Dining Room. One way to determine, is if you have quite a bit of artwork or china collections that you want to hang. If so, you might want to go with paint or a somewhat solid wallcovering so that it won't compete. If you lack artwork to hang, select a printed wallcovering so that the walls won't be bare.

People tend to be timid when selecting colors or wallpaper for their home, so try to let go when decorating this room. Don't worry whether it will work or not, just try it out first. If it's a paint color you're not sure about - buy a quart of it and paint a 4' x 4' section of the wall and try it on for a few days. If it is a wild wallpaper, buy one roll and cut a few strips of it and tape them to the wall. Again, live with the pattern for a few days. And remember, it will only cost a few dollars to try and you may discover a new side of your decorating tastes.

In general, I like for Dining Rooms to be dramatic ...And a little bazaar. One of the most unique Dining Rooms that I have been in was decorated very formally, yet in the corner of the room was a tall concrete garden statue of a fairy. It was wonderful and showed the whimsical side of the owner.

Window Treatments (or lack of)

The window treatments in the Dining Room can be just about anything, however, you will want to follow the flow of the rest of the house. If the Dining Room is open to the Living or Great Room, then you will want to stay within the same style, length and colors as you used for the window treatments in there. If you need privacy or light control, you will want to have a treatment that will allow you to completely close them, If you have a great view and light and privacy are not an issue, just add top and side panels to frame the view.

I also love (you're getting my personal options now - so, you don't have to agree with them!) multi paned windows. Each square in the window is like a small picture. If you have bare windows, without mullions, you can purchase snap in grids to create them from most window manufacturers.