Interior decorator Nicole Rosenberg of Liberty Interiors was given complete creative control to inject personality into her client’s dull and uninviting dining room – and the before and after does not disappoint.
“In addition to designing a dining room that supported the hustle and bustle that comes from having a family with small children, my client wanted a space that would inspire a talking point during their weekly dinner party gatherings.”
Here are her top five tips:
1. Bright and bold colours are great for disguising scuffs and scratches. If you can’t commit to painting the whole wall, paint the bottom half in colour and leave the top half white. Installing a picture rail can also help prevent marks from being made in the first instance.
2. Painting lengths of butcher’s paper and hanging them up in your home to let them settle for a week is an easy way to show how your favourite colours will settle in the space and the impact to the room’s mood and energy.
3. Feature walls can make your space feel smaller, especially in bold and brighter colours. Nicole recommends painting all four walls in a space the same because feature walls can cut off the flow of a room and make it feel smaller. If you want to add colour but are afraid to paint your walls, look to painting furniture items or doors and trims to add vibrancy.
4. For colour surety, order A4 colour stickers or sample pots in your chosen colour(s) to view in your home’s natural lighting conditions. In this DIY, Nicole used Dulux Diorite and Dulux Pharoah’s Gem, with accent splashes of Dulux Integra.
5. No other design element compares to the impact of painting a room, hence why Nicole’s biggest tip is to not be afraid of colour. “Colour can always be painted over, so it’s better to take a leap of faith and choose a colour that you truly love rather than trying to keep things neutral,” she says.
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