Dining room: Before and during

I never would have chosen red for any room, but the previous owners painted the dining room Sherwin-Williams Barn Red. Surprisingly, I love it because it is offset with a lot of white trim.

Here is a photo of the dining room with the seller's furniture and decor:

With such a bold color, I felt like their decor cluttered up the room. For me, it is just too much.

Here's a look from the kitchen on move-in day:

I love how the room looks when stripped of distracting accessories, and the simplicity allows the bold color to be the center of attention. 

We moved our dining set in and hung our Pottery Barn Solano mirror, and it looks great with the existing dining room colors!

My plan is to keep the room red, white, espresso (our dining furniture), silver/pewter, and maybe some small touches of cider (as pictured in the white centerpiece) to pull in the kitchen color.

Instead of going with a bold print or accent color for curtains, I decided to go with these white textured casual cotton drapes so not to distract from the room's architectural details.

And pewter hardware to replace the seller's black rods. (The square finials on top.)

Next, hang the rods!

And here it is!

We love the way it turned out! I can't imagine any other drapes in this room. We'll focus on art and accessories another time, but for now, this room rocks!