Whimsical Dining Room Save VS. Splurge: How To Get The Look

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One of my favorite rooms in the house is our dining room. The dining room is a place to gather, to celebrate meals, to start the day with breakfast and end the day with dessert. In our house, our dining room is also where we set up our Christmas tree, open gifts, welcome people into our home and share life together. While I know that many people have transformed their dining room into an office or have done away with formality in favor of eating at the kitchen island, I believe the dining room is a special place to pause and get to know those around your table. Even while schedules are crazy, we have tried to prioritize family dinner as a moment to stop the hustle and bustle and just be together. While your space doesn’t have to be designed to the nines, having it reflect your personality can be key in how you feel about coming to this spot everyday. In this vein, I wanted to provide a series of mood boards that can help to give inspiration and motivation to find your own style and aesthetic for this special room. For today, I have created two whimsical dining room mood boards that blend modern and traditional designs while providing pops of color. As attractive design can be accomplished at a variety of price points, one mood board will fall more into the “save” / budget category, while the other is a bit more of a “splurge”.

Save

While everyone has their own definition of what “save” / budget means, most of the items in this category provide attractive design for a reasonable price without sacrificing on quality. Some pieces are a steal of a deal and some are not quite as inexpensive as one might like, but overall, will provide a lovely aesthetic. Similarly, if you are a crafty person and are interested in a project, the drapery, artwork and centerpieces could all be achieved in a great many DIY options (check out of some my favorite DIY solutions HERE!). Regardless, I hope that this mood board will help you launch out to create a whimsical dining room of your own.

Splurge

Much like the “save” section, not everything shown here on the “splurge” option is exceedingly expensive. Similarly, while not each of these pieces are exact replications of the “save” options, the overall feeling of the room will be similar. Many of these options are still quite a good deal and the added investment will allow you to create a few more customized options tailored for your space. Similarly, an enhanced investment will provide you not only with greater choices of customization, but can also provide you with additional options for durability, such as using performance upholsteries on your dining room chairs. Each of these pieces allow you to create a layered dining room that feels collected over time while still feeling cohesive in a singular goal of blending traditional, modern and whimsical.

Mixing Together

While I have shown these two mood boards as two different approaches to accomplishing a similar aesthetic, please feel free to pick and choose between the two to combine them together, or use this aesthetic to guide your shopping as you find pieces locally. You certainly do not have to stay limited to either “save” or “splurge”, but instead may want to combine the table of one, rug of another and a piece of local artwork. Similarly, if you want to use the rug as a launching point, but pull in more blue rather than mixing in the green, many of the pieces shown can be pulled in a blue or neutral direction as well. However you accomplish your space, these mood boards can give you a starting point of putting your dining room together in a way that makes you want to enjoy it each and everyday.

Final Thoughts

While there certainly are key tenets of design, the desired appearance and beauty of a room is truly in the eye of the beholder. Hopefully these mood boards can help you to determine which direction you would like to head in to create a room that not only you and your family will enjoy, but that also will provide a backdrop for greater joy and intentionality for life in the future.

Happy designing!