A dinner party schedule prompted this mini-dining room makeover. (Courtesy of Marni Jameson)
My heart filled with panic as I thought about the prospect of hosting a dinner party at my house. I wanted to update my dining room. Suddenly I had an incentive and a deadline.
Dinner parties were not my idea. A few months ago, a friend of mine planned to auction off a dinner for eight at my house to raise money for the Orlando Philharmonic.
“You know your column is 'At Home With Marni'?” That was how she put it together. “Well, this allows people to actually be with Marni. Get that?”
Ah, I see. If he had known what he was getting into when he started writing a design column, Pets would have become a therapist. People think I'm true to my word. Before agreeing, and since no one should be paying to eat my food, I called a chef I knew to see if he could work with me. Chef Angelo Bersani generously agreed to donate his time to prepare and serve the dinner if I paid for the groceries. end! Chef and I ended up doing a package deal on the auction block.
I live in the real world, so redecorating doesn't mean throwing out all your furniture and starting over. It means working with what you have, making small improvements, and ideally getting big results. However, the important thing is to know what those small movements are. So I enlisted the help of Christopher Grubb, a Los Angeles interior designer and longtime friend, who provided direction while I shopped for materials, collected samples, and coordinated workers. I asked him if he could help me.
With the chef and designer on board, I felt my lungs fully expand and my blood pressure drop. Over his next eight weeks, we exchanged dozens of texts, photos, and a few sob emojis, and made small improvements like: That brought great results. The same thing may happen in her room or two in your house.
Added lampshade: I replaced an outdated light fixture in my dining room a few years ago, but I hadn't “finished” the light fixture with the chandelier shade that Grubb had advised. I tried three shade styles, ordered one of each, and returned the rejected ones. I then settled on a tapered shade of black. Black shades direct the light down instead of out, which can make your lighting more dramatic.
Fills art niches: Wall art niches can be difficult to work with because they limit the size of the art you can display on your walls. My dining room accent wall niche was 5 feet square and 3 inches deep. Until recently, large tapestries were hung above the niches and covered them. However, in an attempt to make the space more contemporary, I sold the tapestry and ended up with a hole in the wall. “With niche areas in art, you ask the question, 'Why?'” Grubb suggested drywallers fill in the blanks.
Paste wallpaper: To make the open room feel cozier and more intimate, and to differentiate between the alcove and the entryway, Grubb suggested covering the smoothed back walls and ceiling with sea-green grass cloth. This added character and texture to the room.
Mirror replaced: Mr. Grubb liked the idea of having two mirrors on either side of the art on the main wall, but suggested replacing the existing round mirror with a larger vertical mirror to make the room appear taller. did. We were going for a more transitional, less traditional look, so we kept the frames simple.
Updated end chair: Our goal is to replace all the tapestry-covered dining chairs with more contemporary chairs and leave the existing table, but we're stuck here. I couldn't find a chair I liked that would be suitable for a dinner party. Rather than compromise, I bought the chair I wanted and accepted the fact that it wouldn't arrive until September. Damn that supply chain. In the meantime, I salvaged two table armchairs in a bold zebra print fabric and painted the wooden lacquer black. These chairs, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, are now a staple in my living room, but they also double as end chairs at dinner parties.
Added atmosphere: Once the new furniture was installed, all that was left was to add the finishing touches. Just add pale roses, patterned table linens, crystals and silver, candles, and, of course, a fresh centerpiece for your famous guest to make the room look like a room in its own right. Symphony.
Marni Jameson is the author of seven books, including her most recent book, Rightsize Today to Create Your Best Life Tomorrow. Please contact marni@marnijameson.com. Join us on May 23rd for our free virtual event, “Size Your Life and Live Well Now.” Register at https://extras.mercurynews.com/events/.
