traditional dining room interior design
hi, i'm cynthia soto owner and principal designer at soda pop design inc., and we are sitting in my clients' living and dining room in scarborough. one of the things that our clients really wanted to maintain in this space was their old chandelier, so that kind of set the tone for how it was gonna be a glam-incorporated space, so that definitely had to be reused. another piece that was really important to our clients was their big armoire that they had, so we ended up actually having it painted to kind of look shabby- chic, so that it would still look beautiful in the space and they'd be able to keep it. one other thing that they kind of were hoping to keep was their old living room chair and ottoman, and so we ended up actually painting that out and having it reupholstered and something fun to just kind of nod to the past, but keep it trendy.
so everything else in this space is pretty much new. one of the things that we did a little bit custom was a coffee table, we bought a wood-topped metal framed coffee table, but because they like to put their feet up when they're sitting on the couch, we ended up removing the wood top, which they still have if they want to switch it out, and then just made a custom-made tufted top to match the couch so that it kind of feels a little bit warmer. we designed the layout so that it would feel still open-concept, but still separated enough so that there were zones, so we kind of used the sofa as
kind of a border between the family room tv watching zone and the dining room space behind, which is open to the view in the backyard and the living room kind of got the view of the side yard. one of the really cool elements that we added to this space was the addition of the texture and pattern on the actual floor. so the floor itself is oak but we did in a herringbone pattern and kind of a greige color, so really kind of blends, but lends a really cool texture and pattern to the space. we like to mix a lot of color and pattern and texture, and we're not really afraid of combining colors so we have black chairs with blue velvet cushions, flowered accent cushions with cheetah print,
and we just kind of want it to tell a story like it's been built over time instead of just purchased all at once and plonked into their space. the area that led down to the basement was kind of closed off before, so what we ended up doing was opening it up and creating a custom railing out of the gold and glass to make it feel light and bright and still very chic. the artwork in the space was actually found pieces that really just worked to tie in our whole entire color palette. as part of the open-concept and keeping with kind of the ebbing and flowing of the space, we decided to go with a round dining table to kind of keep the flow very organic and welcoming, and then we chose these big oversized chairs and upholstered them with little lumbar cushions and our accent color of kind of a chartreuse green,
again to bring in some of the outside and to really just glam it up a little bit. some of the fun little added elements that we brought into the space where the cute little drink tables on either end of the sofa, we also thought about having our lounge chairs swivels so that they can kind of turn face the tv or sit and look outside, so those are all kind of cute little value-added elements that our clients really love. one of the most kind of valuable lessons i even learned during this whole entire process, and i shared it with my clients is how it's an entire process and to really kind of trust the process. sometimes it might take a while to get to where you want to get to, but taking that extra time to implement all the right ideas really
makes everything worthwhile at the end.