If this were my dining room (and I would love it to be- it's beautiful,) I would paper it. Either something William Morris-ish for a darker more masculine look or a Chinoiserie for something a bit lighter and more feminine. I would lean toward the Chinese in duck egg blue or jade green or lavender or yellow or anything. The brown in the vegetation will tie into the wood and you will have the colorful background and pretty leaves and birds and whatnot to lighten everything up.

I would definitely add curtains. Simple panels to coordinate with the paper. And I would consider slipcovers for the dining chairs- but I am not sure about that. Eventually I would add a sideboard and art and some candlesticks on the table.

That's my two cents. Worth everything you paid for it :-) Good luck with this project. It is a stunning room. You will need to meet it in boldness or you will not be able to make it your own.

I found this source for Chinoiserie paper- they sell by the square foot- about $15. It's not all just DeGournay and Gracie and Zuber out there :-)

https://www.tempaperdesigns.com/shop-tempaper/chinoiserie-by-tempaper.html

Rita -- this "You will need to meet it in boldness or you will not be able to make it your own" is EXACTLY what's been in my head that I haven't been able to put into words.

Thank you for you for your feedback. I've never considered wallpaper, so now I have something new to research and consider. I'll have to look up examples of the types you recommend.

I think once I understand the direction for the room, it won't be hard to put together. However, at the moment, I feel clueless about it all!

Try a linear chandy on a dimmer. It all feels very lodge-like and rustic to me. The chair rail trim looks like wallpaper made to imitate lathe or stick furniture. If you keep that then I think you have to lean into rustic a bit more.

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Crown molding and rustic beams in the same room? And all across from a grand staircase. Uh uh. This room has an identity crisis. I've never seen brick used like that, and I suspect there's a reason; it makes no sense.

If this were my room, I'd commit to rustic or elegant, one or the other, and if I went rustic, I'd keep the beams and the dark molding, but I'd still rip out the brick and the wainscoting and that chair rail thing.

I think your furniture and china cabinet and rug are fine.

Is this a new build or rehab?

If ripping it all out sounds like too much of a project, I wonder if it could be made to "disappear" by painting it all the same color as the wall. Lots of space for beautiful paintings in gold frames to take the eye upward and away from what's below. The windows should be dressed up with pretty curtain panels that complement the colors in the carpet.

Groveraxle -- I really like your digital recreation taking out the chair rail thing. The room looks so much better without it (and our furniture does look nice there now). Due to the poor lighting, it's hard to tell the wall paint color. It's the same as what's shown in the foyer. It's Vlaspar Coconut Milk. The ceiling is Valspar Quail Egg.

So, let's say we removed the chair rail et al, what kind of chandelier (style) do you think would work? I'd like for it to be linear or oval to spread out the light. There isn't any other lighting in the room and no attic access to add recessed cans.

From the real estate photos, the previous owners used this room as a game room with a pool table. The edge on the chair rail is wide enough to hold a drink. We found a wood piece in the garage that used to be attached to the wall where the china cabinet is. The piece would nearly reach the ceiling if we installed it and has slots to hold pool sticks. There is also an opening in the top of the piece to frame a TV mounted to the wall (thus, we also have a two wall outlets above our china cabinet that we'd like to hide ><).

FINALLYHOME -- when we bought the house, the "dining room" came like this. Read my comment above to see how the previous owners used the room. :P

Remove the pool hall details and you'll have a nice dining room.

What a cool space! Before ripping anything out I think I would paint/whitewash the brick wainscotting and trim on ceilings.I'm not sure about the shelf/chair-rail thing but I think that I would also paint that first. Of course it all depends on what the rest of the house looks like. You've got such unique features I hate to see you just yank it all out.

Two linear chandeliers from Restoration Hardware:

Our house was built in 2006 and we are in Texas so the house has some heavy and/or dark elements typical of the local market. There aren’t any RUSTIC beams in other parts of the house, but there are beams, brick accents and dark trim in a few areas. The study — across the foyer from the dining — has a two story ceiling with stained wood chunky coffered beams. Although they aren’t rustic like the dining ones. The room also has dark stained wood trim and cabinetry. (I have yet to tackle this room!). The family room has dark stained wood trim (baseboards and crown) and built ins; again, not rustic like the dining.

The two story foyer has two Juliet balconies overlooking it, one of which incorporates the brick. I’ll post a pic from when the house was for sale. I want to replace the chandelier and sconces in this area as well.

I think we’ve done a pretty good job thus far in diminishing the *old world* style in the house with furniture, new paint and decor.

There are some really weird elements to this house. The crown molding between the transom and the door to the study is just odd, and not attractive, IMO. I've never seen that done before. I wonder is someone looked at this place as an experiment and just tried whatever crazy thought came into their heads.

I'd first see if those beams on the ceiling are foam/fiberglass. If it is it'll be easy to tear out. If you don't want the work of tearing it out I'd paint it a light color, similar to the baseboards outside the room. I'd definitely tear out the brick and shelf that runs around the room, then paint the door jam, along with the brick, the same color as the rest of the trim in the house. With these changes you won't need to do anything to your table and your hardwood floors will pop!

If you zoom in on this pic, you can see how the beams are constructed. There are several pieces of wood and bead board that make up each of the long pieces. And there is brick in the center circle section. They're not wood "beams" per say, but they are real wood.

We aren't interested in painting over details like the doorway trim or ceiling woodwork/beams. Those details match the feeling of the house as a whole and I think we can work with them. I feel like by taking them down or trying to minimize them by painting them white, that would take away the character of this room. And then the room would look like every other rectangular dining room painted in a light color.

As for the chair rail and wainscoting, I can see that we might be able to take that down OR try to salvage the beadboard into a different design. The beadboard is made of stain grade wood, so it's good quality. If/when we do remove the wainscoting, it will be a big job since it may require all of the walls to be resurfaced to hide a horizontal line around the room where the walls have been painted or to hide any damage to the walls that may happen from taking down the wood/bricks. Additionally, we'd need all new baseboards and base trim.

Groveraxle, in person I don't find that the trim around the transom looks bad or even out of place. My guess is that they wanted the study entry to stand out more in such a large open space. I also believe some (all?) of the dining room work was done after the house was complete so may not have involved the builder at all.

I am back with my unpopular wallpaper ideas :-) Here are some William Morris papers that could play well with the dark wood trim.

I would hope there would be some way of mitigating the brick and the shelf.

Rita -- I really like the feel of these wall papers! I too hope there's a way to take the focus off of the brick and shelf. It may work to remove horizontal brick row and the shelf above and add to the wainscoting to bring it back up to the right height. Then it could be painted. HOWEVER, some of the wood trim around the room is rough hewn, so it would look odd painted. I'll have to check to what pieces are like that.

I really like that second teal William Morris wallpaper Rita posted.

Ok, so I did some investigating. It appears that part of the "wainscoting" may be easy to remove. The brick veneers are mounted to some wood and the bottom baseboard was placed on top of the original baseboard. I think I can remove the brick/top trim and the bottom baseboard. Then add in another layer of beadboard with trim to finish it out. Then paint it to match our existing trim (a cream color). If that makes sense. (the mock up may explain that better)

If I can make that work, I want to sell our existing table and rug because I don't like the table/chairs and the colors in the rug don't match our current decor.

The upholstered parsons chairs I have. The regular chairs for the rest of the table I'd need to get.

Wall decor: maybe a piece of art on canvas for the wall to the left. And mirrors on either side of the china cabinet?

Window treatments: windows not shown but I thought a teal panels would be nice.

I am unsure about the chandelier but thought a glam one might be a good juxtaposition to the rustic elements. Take a look at my mock up to see if you think it works. There are a couple other chandelier options I like that I could swap it for.

What do you think?

I wouldn't want to. There is brick in the ceiling center and there is brick highlighting a Juliet balcony overlooking the foyer. It doesn't look bad. I'm not sure why everyone is so against the brick? ETA: It may not come across in the photos, but the coloring of the brick is very neutral. They might be reading more orange-y in the pics than they really are.

That looks a lot different from your first post inspiration photos. Not sure whether you've been influenced by houzz posters, or you've had this is back of your mind all along. What are the room's dimensions - i.e. is a long rectangular table the only option?

I think that looks lovely, Lucia.

mjlb -- I'm not sure what you mean but the base picture is the same? Houzz posters helped me see that I could adjust the room's elements (by rehabbing the wainscoting: removing the brick there, keeping the beadboard, then painting the wainscoting to match the trim in the rest of the house). By doing this, there are fewer visual distractions for the furniture to fight against.

I'll go measure the room. Not sure of its dimensions. It's fairly long as it used to easily fit a pool table (previous owners).

Rita -- I appreciate your feedback and offering the wallpaper ideas. I haven't ever worked with *real* wallpaper so it is super intimidating to me! And our walls are textured so I think that would all have to be removed first (right?) and that sounds UN-fun!

Lucia - I was referencing the two rooms in your first link (following window treatments):

From your initial post:

Other info.... I marked [this[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/palmetto-bluff-private-residence-traditional-dining-room-charleston-phvw-vp~1170135) dining room as well as [this[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/estates-at-cohasset-elkton-traditional-dining-room-boston-phvw-vp~12582672) one that I like the look and feel of.

The room is 12'x16'. Our current table (first pic) in there is ~38"x82". Current rug is 8'x11'.

Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood. I still do like those rooms and would consider them inspirational, at least partly. I am working around a few constraints for the room so maybe that accounts for the differences?

- I need to find a chandelier that has a single round canopy, due to the way our ceiling is. In searching for a chandelier, it's been hard to find something that I think works with the room and has a single round canopy.

- I really like the paned mirror in the first inspo room, but I'm looking to put one of those in the foyer.

- I would like to find an affordable table that looks like the first inspo pic. I'm searching a local store's inventory for the table and chairs to find something we could potentially really get (and afford) instead of incorporating a picture of the *perfect* table that I don't know the make/price of.

- I would also like to use parsons chairs for all of the seats, but I already have two and doubt I'd be able to match them easily to another 6. I think a contrasting chair type would be a better fit because of that.

In the second insp pic I like how the room is generally neutral but has subtle color to it. I like the lantern light fixtures in that room but realize they won't work for my space. I also like the artwork in the room and I could use something like in my room in place of the circular mirrors.

For my room, I knew I wanted to find a rug with a neutral base that had a few bits of accent color. The accent colors in the rug shown in the mock-up might be more vivid than I pictured in my mind, but I think they work. I also like the idea of an oriental rug that's not so traditional.

I hope that helps explain?!? Maybe those rooms aren't exact inspirations. I'm still on the lookout for room designs to help guide me. My unusual dining room doesn't make it easy to compare online dining rooms to my own.

Lucia, you are so very kind. May you and your family enjoy tremendous happiness around your table.

I find the white beadboard discordant with the dark beams and door casings and brick. Why not beadboard stained to match?

When I saw the table in the first inspiration photo, I thought it resembled ones at Arhaus. You could also check 1stDibs. Normally I find the Houzz price tag on things to be really annoying, but for once, it could be useful in that it links to similar looking tables.

While it may be too rustic, the Four Hands Castle Dining Table has a very 'Texas' top (at least to this east coaster)! You can also type 'country trestle table' into Houzz shopping search, and get a good sample.

mjib -- I do love that Four Hands Castle Dining table. It's gorgeous! The store I'm shopping has a Four Hands table ("Tuscan Spring") and for a great price! It's close to the one you posted but it has trestle legs not the pedestal like the Castle. Our kitchen table has trestle legs so I like the idea of pedestal or something else for the dining. I'll have to keep looking for something like the Castle table that is more in our price range.

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Have you considered painting all the wood in the room the same color as the hall baseboards? You could then lighten the brick by whitewashing it using 1/2 off-white paint and 1/2 water applied sparingly with a paint brush. The shutters look a bit dainty with the heavy wood. Perhaps they’d feel more in keeping with the lighter painted trim.

Good luck.