Disclosure: For this post I received gifted product from AllModern. All opinions are my own and always will be! Thanks for supporting content that keeps Jojotastic going.
I am majorly blown away by all of the love and positive responses to the overall reveal of our PNW cabin interior! Like I mentioned, I have so many posts coming to break down every facet of the space — after all, we literally did a makeover on half of the house! But today is all about one central spot: the dining room. As you’ll recall in my design plan post, I had big goals… and I think we pulled it off! Let’s dig into the space a bit more.
Makeover Reveal: Our Eclectic Scandinavian Inspired Cabin Dining Room
Before Photos
As you can see, the dining room in our cabin is really open. It’s more of a pass-through space between the kitchen and the rest of the house. Plus, it has the highest ceiling — up to 15′ at it’s tallest! However, the dining room doesn’t have any windows of it’s own and relies entirely on ambient light from upstairs, the kitchen, and the living room. It was like a cave!
Then there are a few elements to the space that I can’t quite change: the weird steps up to the guest room, bathroom, and laundry closet, as well as the ancient, dusty gas stove. I cannot WAIT to redo our floors one day and get rid of the white trim on the stairs. It drives me nuts, but that’s a project for the future.
Brightening things up
Paint works absolute wonders, so that was definitely the biggest change in the dining space. I embraced the doors that I wasn’t too keen on by painting them green… and now I actually like them! Plus, we painted the raw wood slats in between the timbers on the ceiling. That made a massive difference when it comes to brightening up the entire space. Light actually bounces around and makes the space feel so much brighter, even on a dreary Pacific Northwest day.
A modern, minimalist dining table
At the core of every good dining room is a handsome dining table… and I am beyond obsessed with our Flemings Dining Table from AllModern. It was actually the first piece of new furniture I chose for this home, if you can believe it! Because of the steps that lead up to our laundry closet nook, I had to be very picky about the shape and size of the table. Once I discovered this extremely on-trend pill-shaped dining table though, I knew I’d found The One.
Pro tip: when trying to determine the right size dining table to get (or any piece of furniture for that matter), create a tape outline of the piece on the floor. This will help you get a better idea of the overall footprint of the furniture piece and how it relates to the rest of your space.
The shape is definitely trending. It isn’t so much an oval as it’s literally a pill shape, making it feel way more modern. The finish is really gorgeous, too. It isn’t quite true black and you can see the wood grain texture and patterning. It’s awesome and really gives me minimalist, Scandi-inspired vibes.
And then the legs… oh man, I love the legs in this table. This is the first dining table for six that I’ve ever had where the table’s legs aren’t interfering with where my legs can go!
Dining room decor
As for the rest of the space, I kept things pretty simple because it’s so open to the rest of the house. I didn’t want it to visually compete. Especially since there are so many lights interesting! My biggest goal was to achieve a harmonious composition of lines comprised of the upstairs railings, the slats on the ceiling, the moulding on the doors, and even the ribs on the light fixture.
Our dining chairs are carried over from the tiny bungalow. I am not 100% happy with them at the moment… But for now, they work. I added faux shearling seat pads to cozy up the farmhouse style chairs, while the faux leather is a nice anchor material for the ends of the table. But I think once I do get new chairs, they will all match.
As for the rug, I chose a neutral flatwoven indoor/outdoor rug. I feel it’s a bit unexpected to use an outdoor rug inside, so I’m going to share my reasoning behind why in an upcoming blog post. I also have a post in the works to break down all of the lighting + how I made my decisions, so be sure to keep an eye out for that, too!
And lastly, we updated the ceiling fan! I know fans get a bad wrap, but when you live in a cabin that is mostly heated by a woodstove, it’s a necessity. Our old fan was extremely rickety and frightening — we actually called it the death trap! But now we have a sleek, silent fan that I absolutely love. And it’s remote control powered! I love that it has a light as well so that I can turn it on when I’m doing a puzzle for extra illumination.
So what do you think of our overall dining room? Should I hang some art on the walls or should I leave it simple and clean? I’m still very much undecided! Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
