Design your dining room to evoke the countryside of southern France.
Do it yourself to create a casual southern French country dining room where you can practically smell the fresh baguette and lavender. Depending on your interests and skill level, you can shop for rustic features, such as chandeliers and chairs, from flea markets and online vendors; make craft-intensive projects, such as hand-embroidered linens and lace; or even build your own faux-weathered furniture, such as a dining table and china hutch, from reclaimed wood. Choose the elements you want to include in your design, and make every meal the vacation of your dreams.
Instructions
1. Choose colors that evoke southern France for walls, ceilings and floors. Look at photographs of the landscape for ideas. Poppy red, mustard yellow, lavender and sage green all make fitting candidates. Creamy white walls are an easy backdrop to show off beautiful wood furnishings. Take images of the countryside to paint shops to match shades precisely. Alternatively, mimic the colors in a southern French country you especially like. Natural or whitewashed floors are bright and sunny; dark stains and black paint can feel warm and masculine.
2. Find or build sturdy wood furniture with a weathered patina. Make a heavy farm-style dining table using an old barn door for the top. Build or find benches for casual meals that can seat lots of unexpected guests. Renovate a china hutch by applying a faux finish with several layers of paint to simulate the wear and tear of generations of use. Mix chairs with different colors and finishes; casual country style means using what is nearby and functional rather than going out of your way to match items.
3. Accessorize the room with French country-style dishes, water pitchers, linens and lighting. Use gas lamps for flickering mood lighting at a festive country dinner party; mix and match antique silverware on a daily basis for a casual spin on traditional gravitas. Remember that meals are everything in southern France; feature special pitchers for decanting wine and water and good dishes, old and new, for sharing food family-style at the communal table. Collect regional cookware, such as madeleine tins, snail tongs and butter crocks, to celebrate the region. Add artwork from or featuring the region, and water glasses filled with fresh herbs, such as sage, basil, rosemary, lavender and thyme to complete the look.
Tags: dining room, southern France, china hutch, country dining, country dining room,