Dark wood Dining Room Palette

There are dining rooms you eat in. And then there are dining rooms you linger in.

I worked with a client that incorporated burgundy marble in her dining room, pink and terracotta all over the room. At first glance it was lot to take in but I appreciated how her interior designer had planned everything. She came to us to add to the current

The difference is about how they slowly incorporated the items into the dining room, and thought out the colours, textures and lighting.

It's about what the room asks of you the moment you walk in. Whether it says sit down and get comfortable or whether it says you have somewhere to be. Whether the light is generous and the chairs are worth an hour. Whether the art on the wall gives you something to think about between courses, and this space made me want to sit down and slow down.

This collage works with the main colour terracotta and worked to create a similar sit down and slow down feeling as the client did. It is warm without being soft. Considered without being cold. And it is built around one of the most important and undervalued acts of modern life, the long dinner, unhurried, where the conversation outlasts the food and nobody checks the time.

The Palette

Deep Espresso & Amber : The tufted rug is the emotional engine of this room, and it demands to be talked about first. Used to bring the dark rich brunette wood and terracotta together. That labyrinthine pattern in chocolate and amber is the most complex graphic statement across the entire series, and yet it doesn't feel busy, because the tones are so closely related, so rooted in the same dark warmth. It is the kind of rug that makes a room feel old in the best way, as if it has absorbed a hundred dinners and remembers all of them.

Mindi Brunette : The Brunette finish appears here on both the Caraway Dining Table and the St Martin Dining Chair, and in a dining room context it reaches its full potential. This is the finish at its most confident: dark enough to feel substantial, warm enough to feel alive. Simply rich. 

Black Leather : The St Martin chair seats in black leather is a statement. Black leather at a dining table signals a certain seriousness about the act of sitting. It is durable, it ages beautifully, and it introduces a material tension with the warm timber that the room needs to stop it from becoming too sweet. 

Maintenance wise I find black leather to be the easiest colour and  upholstery to wipe clean without staining. This sits inside any dining table, making it a subtle bold colour, easy to match with a black accent painting, sculpture or black striking floor lamp. 

Brushed Brass : Three conical pendants in brushed brass, hung on chains in a row above the table. This is one of the oldest and most proven lighting forms in interior design, and it earns its longevity. The brushed finish is the right call here — it reads as considered rather than decorative, and the warmth it adds to the faces around the table at dinner is worth every decision that led to it.

Warm Sand : The background tone of this board is the palest and warmest of the series, and it works here because everything placed against it is so deeply saturated. In a room this rich, you want the walls and surrounds to recede. Simple and soft.

Terracotta : That flush of terracotta sitting in the composition is the room's wildcard or accent colour, and the beautiful thing about terracotta is its versatility. It could arrive as a wall paint in an adjacent space, glimpsed through an open door. It could be a large-format artwork, earthy and abstract. A ceramic floor lamp beside the sideboard. A stack of handmade bowls on the table. 

Let’s add to the palette

The starting line was strong and I believe it needed a bold, high texture and black piece to tie the subtle dining chair, possibly pots and vases into harmony.

A subtle soft texture was needed to calm the terracotta and black, and I brought in linen curtains. Which honestly is hard not to get right in most spaces. 

With all of this coming together, the dark wood and black accents would sit gorgeous next to the window and linen curtains. Giving into the sun rays that could caress the dark colours, rough sculptures and marble floor beautifully.