The Dining Room Table
Curating my dining room has been a huge project. I’ve been slowly but surely making little bits of progress. The crown jewel of any dining room is the table. Finding the right fit for my dining room was quite the task. Restoration Hardware has always exceeded expectations and has nothing but high quality pieces. After searching quite literally every home and interior design retailer in the city, I stumbled upon the dining room table of all tables. I fell in love with the salvaged wood trestle rectangular extension dining room table from RH.
This biggest challenge of my dining room was the space! My dining room is 13ft x 20ft. Finding a table to fill that space was nearly impossible. I knew I needed an extension table in order to do that took justice. My dream is to host the holidays for my big-crazy Italian family. We would need a table grand enough to entertain and seat 20+ people. Sonja was my interior design consultant at RH, she was so accommodating and helpful. I sketched out the room and dimensions in my space and she helped me find the perfect length and width. The dream originally was to get the largest table possible. I ordered the largest table possible but sadly, there was a hiccup with the first delivery. I originally ordered 120” table with the156” extension but the center table top of the table refused to fit up my freight elevator or my passenger elevator. After a very lengthy, two hour delivery attempt, the delivery team called it quits, and I had to send the table of my dreams back to the RH warehouse.
Since the first delivery failed, due to measurement and elevator issues, I partnered with the RH design team and we ended up selecting the next table size down. The 96” table with the 144” extension. I created a schematic of my dining room and emailed Sonja right away. It was a pain in the butt to measure everything but also really fun to create a digital layout of my home. First is drew up a rough sketch of the room and then grabbed my handy dandy tape measure. I was most concerned about the elevators. Getting the table up the elevator and into my condo was going to be the toughest challenge. It was fun to play interior designer for a little while. Everyone at RH was so helpful and wonderful. They even helped me sort through bench options too! Deciding on the color of the table was the most difficult choice. The reclaimed grey was the superior choice due to the floor stain and wall color i had in my condo. I was aiming for a cool tone and modern dining environment. My color palette desires were a deep chocolate brown, light cool tone grey, black and white with a little accent of green.
I curated a fully functioning wine bar that serves as as extra dining seating in a pinch. I purchased old reclaimed railway ties for shelving and worked with Home Depot to create custom cabinetry. This room not only is the entry way but it’s the first space you walk into. It was important to create a fluidity between the dining room table and the wine bar.
A special part of this project was the dining chair choice. I wanted to channel my grandma Quarino and I always envisioned a dining room similar to hers. She had the old wooded spindle chairs and a massive bench for the grandchildren to pile onto. I knew before I even found the table that I wanted a bench feature and wooden spindle chairs. After siting in close to 30 chairs in person and scouring the internet, I found the perfect chair I had always envisioned. Crate and Barrel had the Marllow II black maple dining chair online and I knew I had to have it. Originally I thought I wanted a shorter rounded back chair but after seeing the height of the Marllow II, I knew I had to have it. I ended up purchasing 8 chairs total. I sadly did not love the bench options at crate. I ended up selecting the matching salvaged wood bench from RH. I did however, want the chairs and bench to match. RH didn’t have a bench long enough to accommodate a144” table but two 68” benches did the trick! I ended up selecting the matching benches to my table. The salvaged wood benches in black truly completed the look to the room.
After seeing the dining room all set up and composed, I was absolutely obsessed! It’s everything I dreamed of an more. Sadly, being the perfectionist I am, I couldn’t fall in love with the color of the table. Every element in the room is cool toned and the table itself was reading more beige than grey. I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I stained or painted the table more grey. After speaking with RH, watching a few YouTube videos and consulting my dad… I knew I could fix the glaring color issue. I ended up finding a grey gel stain from Home Depot. I tested the gel stain on the bottom of an extension on the table to make absolutely sure I was a color that suited the room. I was beyond terrified and excited to see if I had just ruined a $4K RH table. Luckily the color looked incredible and my tiny heart attack was averted. After several days of fumes, painting and drying; the dining room finally looked perfect! It’s crazy to think about how far my dining room has come since I purchased my condo in 2019. There used to be this very interesting and tacky gothic orange star chandelier, and the walls were a dated spongy yellow. It is absolutely incredible to see the transformation my dining room has been through. Everything is designed and curated perfectly. The modern Crate and Barrel chandelier definitely complements the style of the chairs. The silvery grey paint I chose for the walls works so beautifully with the gel stain I selected for the table. It feels so lovely to have this room finished. I can’t wait to host some fun, dinner parties, and holidays with this gorgeous table!
