Dining Room Update | Chippendale Chairs + Renter Friendly Accent Wall

Today, I’m sharing two updates for our dining room – our finished Chinese Chippendale Chairs and a renter friendly accent wall! I’m making the finishing touches to our TN rental, so a full tour will be in the next few weeks!

It’s been warm the past few days, but super rainy and overcast. I really miss the CA sun – it’s been about a year and a half since we left CA and I’m going into withdrawal. Yesterday, I finished the final box cover for the Chippendale chairs, and the sun came out just in time at the end of the day to take some photos.

My original plan was to share the rehab of these Chinese Chippendale chairs in real time progress (you can see my updates here, here and here) and I have, but it’s been several months.. (normally it doesn’t take that long 🙂 Why did it take so long? Because I couldn’t decide on the fabric.. I think my indecision came from not knowing exactly where they are going (we’re moving soon!) so I wanted something that could fit in most places. I ended up going with Robert Allen Alchemy linen zinc (color way currently out of stock). It’s a heavy linen with a metallic coating on top – almost giving it the feel of laminated fabric, but not in a bad way – it’s very pretty. It seems like it will hold up well!

The chairs required A LOT of work (you can see all the before pics here) It would have been nice to leave them wood (they are heavy and solid) but there was too much damage and those backs needed to come off to show the gorgeous fretwork. The staple holes needed to be filled in with wood filler – so paint was a must. I do LOVE them in white though, so bright and fresh!

I tackled the box covers myself (my Mom helped me with a set a while ago, more here). I was a little concerned with the curves, but luckily it worked out in the end. Whew! They have a few flaws, but overall they turned out well!

Up next, a renter friendly (inexpensive) accent wall.

We built a simple frame out of 1x2s that was painted white (make sure they are fairly straight – since they are cheap, they are notorious for being warped). For the background, we used a large loose painting canvas that we had around the house and painted it with SW Urbane Bronze. Note: loose canvas must be kept tight while priming to avoid wrinkles (and it will shrink some). Normally, I like to prime on a designated piece of drywall – so I can adjust the pins and keep it tight. But, the paint bleeds through the canvas, so we temporarily attached it to the back of the frame and painted there, it was kinda a mess since I had to put a tarp underneath and push hard to get the paint even … definitely not set up for painting here, but it worked! Then, once it dried, we removed it, flipped it so it was the right way and then stapled in place.

A few months ago, we found a knock off Arco floor lamp on Craigslist for $40. It’s been sitting in our dining room ever since (it’s heavy!) I’m thinking about moving it to our TN living room, but it will most likely end up in our MD living room when we move.

I moved our console table from the living room here, I’m not sure if it will stay, but I love the pop of color from the lamps and ottomans contrasted by the dark canvas. We’re building a new console table this weekend, so it will go here or behind the sofa.

That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow for Friday Five!