Your links did not work for me. Hope someone gives them a larger rug. :-)

Thanks Voila, sorry about that! Here are the links again. These are very basic overviews.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_edwardian.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_artnouveau.shtml

http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/category/interior-design/

I also forgot to mention that Downton Abbey was set in 1912-1924, so just slightly post-Edwardian, if that helps with ideas. There are tons of websites and Pinterest boards about Downton Abbey decor.

PBS set the Manor House series in the Edwardian era, and they have a website about the show.

http://www.pbs.org/manorhouse/thehouse/decorating.html

I'll give it a try. This is my first design around that and only my second mood board ever so here goes:

Adding to the backstory a bit for my particular take on this project, the couple decided not to spend the money or put up with the mess of refinishing the floors. Fortunately, they inherited a big Persian rug, which will cover a lot of the floor in the dining room. The walls will be covered in embossed wallpaper, painted benjamin moore robins egg blue. The wife loves flowers and asked for some floral references to be included and the husband is from California and asked for his beloved home state to be included in some way. Both of them also love Georgia O'Keefe's art. So the chandelier and art work were chosen to meet those requests, while the table and chairs were chosen to tie in more closely with the Edwardian style of the home.

(The poppy art work is for sale on Etsy. )

Edited to add, if something on my board isn't big enough to see, please let me know and I can post separate images that should be bigger.

I don't do Olioboards well, so I've decided to tell you all a story. Hope you don't mind.

When Carol and Ted first looked at the house, they knew the dining room could be really spectacular.

Fortunately, the sellers cleared everything out when they moved...and left a fairly blank slate, except for the lovely fireplace and built-ins. Carol knew she wanted something dramatic on the walls, but not too heavy. After doing some research on the web, she found some beautiful wallpaper on Ebay, but only enough to do a small strip around the room. Her imagination took care of the rest!

Then they refinished the floors to be more in fitting with the
rest of the room. Ted offered to help....he has a friend, who knew a
guy, who refinished floors :)

Before Carol did anything else, she really wanted to find the right table and chairs. But despite weeks of looking, nothing seemed right. She took a leap of faith and decided to design around them....and went to look for a chandelier. A neighbor had told her about a little shop a few miles away and she asked Ted to go with her. As they walked in, she saw the perfect fixture.

And underneath it was the chair.

Carol stopped and grabbed Ted's arm. They both looked at each other and said....."That's the chair!" Carol clapped her hands together, "It even picks up the orange on my Spode." They walked around and saw nothing like it. "What if it's the only one?" Carol said. Ted replied, "It can't be, it's exactly what we've been looking for all over town."

As they walked through the store, they saw a man working in the back. When they asked if there were any more chairs....he replied, yes, there were five more. He had them in back, because his wife was going to paint them the next week, hoping they would attract a buyer. This one was out because he thought it might look good next to that desk.

"Paint them!" Ted gasped. We'll buy all six, but we need a table to go with them. The man smiled and said, I don't have a table, but I have the perfect rug.

Carol agreed completely, because the rug not only had her orange, but also that light blue from the wallpaper.

So, Ted and Carol came home with six chairs, a rug and a chandelier...but still no table. Ted decided it was time to do some Craigslist shopping! He surprised Carol the next day by taking her out to the garage. "I know you like to do the shopping, but I found this and I wanted to surprise you. It's still not a table...but it will look great with the built-ins."

Carol loved it! Now there was plenty of room for her china and all her crystal.

She was so excited to see everything in the dining room...but still hadn't found a table. It was so ridiculous to design a dining room without a table and she had made every other purchase. Then Ted said he had one more surprise for her and Carol thought it sounded like it had arrived.

"Oh, that's Rob with the truck," Ted said with a smile. He asked if we could do him a favor and help him clean out his garage. Carol looked at Ted and she started smiling, too. "You didn't," she laughed..."how did you?"

She ran out and saw her brother Rob, and started hopping up and down. He had brought over their Grandmother's table, which had been given to him years earlier. "I don't seem to ever have the right spot for this," Rob said, "and Ted told me you were looking for a table. Would this work?"

Carol laughed and hugged her brother. "Holiday dinners for life, Rob." And she and Ted (and Rob) lived happily ever after...as all stories should end :)

I love this, nice work, both of you!

Crl, I really like your choice of that gorgeous rug in combination with the pale blue painted Lincrusta wallpaper. It looks both historical and current, if that makes sense. And I adore that chandelier- where did you find it?

LL, you are quite the storyteller, and I wish real-life shopping was as full of happy coincidences! :-) Those chairs are absolutely perfect, wow! Thank you for saving them from being painted.

This chandelier is the Primrose bowl in gold from house of antique hardware. Here is a link Thanks for the kind words!

Lavender lass, I like your Art Deco table from the garage!

Jlc- Thank you! I knew I wanted something unusual for the chairs and I love to go antique/thrift store shopping. We see so much painted furniture these days...and they're really nice, but some furniture should NOT be painted. And I have had those 'happy coincidences' so many times, when I go shopping for one thing and find another item I'd almost given up on. (LOL)

Crl- Thanks...you know, I didn't plan that. The table picture was so small next to the chair picture...I just kept moving it down...and the story just kind of wrote itself. I like the ending though, because my family is always swapping furniture to fit whatever home we're in...and my grandmother was a big collector of family heirlooms. She saved many pieces that no one else wanted and then handed them down to us :)

Now, to your post...that is a wonderful chandelier! The rug and artwork are such great additions to the room and that wallpaper is amazing. Can you post larger pictures of the table and chairs? They're very nice, but I can't really see the detail.

Sorry, I didn't comment on your post last night, but I don't like to look at other ideas (don't want to be influenced on my design) before I write mine down. And by the time I finished....I hit submit and went to bed. These DATs take more time than you think :)

Your gonna need a bigger rug.

Lavenderlass, table and chairs in bigger picutres. I like the table, but confess that I grabbed the first picture of chairs that seemed appropriate that I could find with neutral fabric. Your chairs are really fantastic.

I like those chairs! The shield backs are so delicate and pretty...and I like the way they contrast with the feet of the table

When I found the chair I used, the first thing I noticed was the orange, but my favorite part is the carving on each side of the center back piece. They remind me of dragons...they're not, but that's what really sold me on the chair!

Dracarys..... :)

Here's my first pass at our dining room.

Frankie and Orion are travelers, and they love the journey every bit as much as the destination. Now that they have their first permanent home base, they want their main interest reflected, but they also want to be sensitive to the history and age of the house. They spent some time researching the late Victorian and Edwardian styles and time periods. When they learned about the British hot air balloon races of the early 20th century, they knew they wanted to include a reference to that. It spoke to their sense of adventure. Had they been around back then, they would have been first in line to race a balloon. It didn't take Frankie long to find the perfect chandelier. They just had to build a figurative bridge between that chandelier and Orion's antique Spode. They spent Saturdays at any auction that looked promising. They went to antique stores and even bought some things that were brand new. It took time, but they are happy.

Prettybluehouse, even your chairs have a balloon feel to them! Where did you find that light fixture?

crl, I can't remember where that came from. I've looked at a surprising amount and variety of balloon lights today. I really liked your room. The rug is so deep and rich and the overall design is sophisticated.

lavender_lass, I really enjoyed your story. And those chairs, they're great!

Thanks for the compliments everyone. This was a lot of fun. Orange is my least favorite color so it was interesting working with it. I appreciate the effort to set up this challenge!

Ok, here is my attempt. I may have broken the Internet with all my browsing around. It's definitely more fun than real life shopping with a budget :-)

The couple found the pale orange and green wallpaper first, and loved the vine and bird pattern. It made the fireplace stand out beautifully. They decided to paint the trim molding and the ceiling in a coordinating pale green. Everyone told them to leave it painted white, but they decided to go for it, and it looked perfect.

They visited antique stores and auctions and haunted Ebay until they found the Art Nouveau buffet, with a beautiful painted panel that complimented the wallpaper, and displayed the Spode perfectly. The buffet was a perfect fit on the wall adjacent to the fireplace. They decided to use the built-ins for display of their growing collection of art pottery.

It took a full year of looking for just the right chairs, until they found the perfect ones with flower shaped backs. They ended up having the table custom designed and built to coordinate with the buffet and chairs.

The couple was cleaning out the attic when they found a huge wooden crate stuffed with excelsior. They began digging through it, and were thrilled to find the pieces of the original chandelier. They had it rewired and put it back where it belonged.

Since the wallpaper had so much color and pattern, they wanted to do a solid color rug. Nothing looked quite right until they found the green overdyed rug.

The finishing touch was the purchase of a beautiful landscape painting, painted by by a local artist, Henri Moser, in the 1920's. It was the couple's anniversary gift to each other.

I love the "original" chandelier! And a local and period painting is awesome.

This one is late-Victorian/Edwardian, and probably too pattern heavy for modern tastes.

A modernist take:

Palimpsest, can you tell more about where those patterns go in your first mood board? Is the black at the bottom a rug? And the patterns on the right wallpapers? Thanks!

Yes, to the right is the Persian Room set of papers from Bradbury and Bradbury, and the bottom is actually dark blue broadloom carpet in pattern typical of the Edwardian era. To the right are possible chair seat fabrics.

Thank you! I like the dark blue with the China. I admit to being pattern phobic so it is a lot of pattern for me, but I bet it would look spectacular.

PBH, you took it in such an unexpected direction with the balloons! I can't believe you found chairs that tied in so well. Super cool.

Crl, red/orange are my least favorite colors. I picked the orange Spode intentionally to be more challenging, but it turns out that I really like it with blues and greens everyone has used. Interesting, and a good reminder I need to get out of my blue/green/brown comfort zone.

Pal, I love Bradbury wallpapers so much. The Persian border is so gorgeous and I love it with the bright blue. Your modernist take makes me want to cry a little :-) but it is very striking.

Chinoiserie

oh Pal...those wallpapers! I'm in love :)

I'm having so much fun with this. Here's another attempt.

Maisie and Dan lived two houses down from each other as kids. In the 70s, all the kids spent the their free time roaming the neighborhood in a pack. Maisie's Great Aunt Peg lived around the corner. She loved kids and it showed, but she never had any, so the neighborhood gang spent a lot of time on her porch all summer long. She was that fun aunt everybody wants. She fed them, taught them all to play poker, and if she saw an older kid or two sneak a cigarette, she never told. Her house was big, mysterious, and irresistible to young imaginations, filled with huge antiques she'd picked up along the way.

Years later, when Maisie and Dan got married, Aunt Peg chose a few of her favorite antiques and earmarked them for the couple. When they bought their beautiful old house, just three blocks away, Aunt Peg was delighted. She hired some movers to come and get the antiques and bring them over to Maisie and Dan's house. Somehow, she forgot to mention it to them.

When the movers showed up with these huge things, Maisie and Dan just stood in the foyer watching them come into the house, half-amused, half-horrified. This is not what they would have chosen, had they been given a choice. They would never want to offend of hurt Aunt Peg, so they decided to thank her and go with it. That buffet, though, how do you work with that? Maisie called in her artist friend Sarah. Together, they figured out something bold, modern, and fun. It's the Aunt Peg of rooms. To make it complete, they framed a photo of a teenaged Aunt Peg and hung it over the mantel.

Fun room! Is that wall,paper or a rug?

Sorry, rug. The walls are meant to be F&B Pointing.

In my design I
changed the doors on cabinets to nouveau brass framed mirrors. There is a mural
on the ceiling and darker stain on the floors. The walls are Benjamin Moore Skyscraper
#765 in egg shell. All cabinetry, moldings and baseboards are BM Skyscraper in
semi gloss. Art is labeled. Carpets are layered in areas. The fireplace was
invented by me (but kept in same location) by copy and pasting several different components found online.

In my interpretation
I wanted more focus on the fireplace and felt it needed a makeover. I didn’t
much care for the dark recessed but floating look of the built-ins so decided
to blend but add some interest.

BEFORE

Love the ceiling mural!

JT, I love what you did with the built in cabinets. I wasn't a big fan of them either. Also love the ceiling mural.

Well isn’t this fun?

Crl- Nice idea with the textured wall paper.

Lavender- love those chairs!

Prettyhouse- cool table.

Jlc72-I really like how the artwork in your 4:07 post puts a
whole new spin on the design.

Pal- really digging the Chinoiserie!

Until recently, Mimi and Fitz had been living
in a suburban ranch style home. It didn't really suit their design aesthetic,
and they really preferred something more urban. So when this Edwardian gem came
on the market in a cute urban neighborhood, they jumped at the opportunity. The
couple scoffs at the corporate blandness of Pottery Barn. Their previous home
was furnished mostly in thrift store finds, but now, with their careers firmly
on track, and a bit of an inheritance from Fitz's mom, they can splurge on some
nice vintage furniture.

The couple fell in love with a set of blue Art
Nouveau chairs from 1st Dibs. Although they looked at vintage tables, they
ended up sticking with what they had--a Scandinavian modern dining table passed
down from Fitz's mom. A pale blue Persian rug picked up the blue of the chairs
and a bit of orange/rust to play off of their Spode china (also inherited). Not
one to do anything by halves, Mimi picked Benjamin Moore Pumpkin Spice for the
walls, and BM Summer Nights for the ceiling. They found a very cool early 20th
century light fixture at Rejuvenation. Fitz was quite taken with the stong
vertical lines of the painting by Miles Blair ("With the Crow," on
1st Dibs), and Mimi agreed that it picked up enough colors from the room
without being matchy-matchy (Mimi isn't passionate about art, but she doesn't
like blank walls, either).

Love the chairs with the rug!

Those are some cool chairs, cawaps.

Comments:

crl_: I love the feet on that table. I have a soft spot for embossed wallpaper (I have some original in my own Edwardian), and the blue paint is a nice counterpoint to the oranges.

Lavender: The wallpaper border is awesome, and manages to evoke an Art Nouveau vibe. And I love the cabinet piece.

Prettybluehouse Balloons: While normally I would think the balloon fixture was a bit kitschy (to be fair, it IS a bit kitschy), I think you did an amazing job pulling the theme together. I love, Love, LOVE the Zeppelin artwork. I had to enlarge it to see the stork carrying the baby--very weird but very fun. I ran across the chairs browsing on 1st Dibs, and might have used them if you hadn't already (and to better effect).

jlc712: I love greens, especially yellow-greens, and love how they work here. I didn't properly appreciate the wallpaper until I enlarged the pic (the displayed resolution doesn't do it any favors). But once I could see it, it's gorgeous, and pairs well with your green trim paint and the green of the chairs. The chairs and buffet have really nice detail.

Palimpsest late-Victorian/Edwardian: I love the Bradbury and Bradbury
wallpapers; they definitely put a room in the period. I liked that you anchored the room with a relatively toned-down rug.

Palimpsest modernist: It took me a while to wrap my head around this one. Normally I like eclectic, and on thoughtful examination, I bought into the rug, the fixture and the damask. I'm struggling with mentally integrating the table and chair with the rest of the space, though.

Palimpsest chinoiserie: Love this!

Prettybluehouse Aunt Peg: I love the cheerful bright colors here, although I'm not sure about pairing the floral chairs will the floral run would work IRL (possibly too much of good thing, though I like each separately.

Justterrilynn: I love what you've done with the fireplace. It was a bit hard to tell, in the original pic, what was going on with the fireplace (with the table in front), but I think what you've done is a vast improvement. In contrast, I DID like the built ins (unlike you and jlc712) and am a bit sad you painted them (but then, most Edwardian built-ins were painted somewhere along the line). The rug is great, and the artwork is a nice fit.

Cawaps, those chairs are great. Love the "ears" on the back. Your combination of dark ceiling, mid-tone walls, light rug is unusual and I like it. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.

This has been fun. I loved seeing each design. I think Crl's is my personal favorite. I could really visualize the room, with the pale blue lincrusta paper, beautiful chandelier, and the great rug that tied it all together and made it a bit more modern.

Thank you all for participating! I think maybe we'll get more participation when it's not a holiday weekend. Any ideas for next week? Anyone want to put it together? I'll go back and look at the suggestions and post them.

So this is my first attempt at this game....not exactly Edwardian as you can see:

In terms of the next challenge:

I am not sure that a room is a strong enough parameter, because if you honor the essential architecture almost anything can go in terms of the furnishings, unless you call for a period reproduction. It might be more specific of a challenge to work around a painting or specific piece of furniture, for example.

kswl2, beautiful rug and I really like that sideboard.

I think someone mentioned choosing a piece of art, any piece, and designing a room based that piece but not actually using the art? I would love that--already thinking of a nursery and have a piece of art in mind. But whatever people want is fine with me. I appreciate the work setting this one up; I really had a lot of fun doing it.

kswl2, I think that rug really compliments the Spode. Nice work.

I like the idea of basing a room off a piece of art, but not using the art in the room. I think someone mentioned a DAT using only things from our own local craigslist. That appeals to me. It would be such a challenge.

Thanks!

Love the round table!

I love Stickley, nice choice! Very quiet, monochromatic room. Isn't Vanessa Bell Virginia Woolf' s sister? I'll have to go Google now :-)