Room reveal: our rustic-minimalist dining room
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After months of flooring, sanding, priming, painting and juggling different trades, the ground floor of our little 19th-century cottage is pretty much finished – and this once-tired and unloved house is really starting to feel like home.
I’ll share the kitchen and living room in future posts, but I want to start with the dining room. It’s the first space you enter when you step into the cottage through our miniscule vestibule (I’m not sure it even counts as a hallway!), and it sets the tone for the calm, cosy mood that we want to create throughout. It’s also of course the first room that we saw when we viewed the house, so it’s where we began to fall in love with its charms and see the potential behind its then-scruffy and dated decor.
The overall scheme
I outlined our renovation plans for the cottage as a whole in this post, where you can also see some ‘before’ photos and read about our move from Bristol. But in short, we want it to be pared-back yet textural, with rustic elements that give subtle nods to the countryside setting. For the colour and material palette we’re drawing inspiration from the Bath stone of the exterior walls, reflecting its honeyed tones in beiges and off-whites with a gentle underlying warmth. We’re also introducing lots of wood, stone and natural fabrics to the interior, breaking up the paler hues with darker browns here and there.
In the dining room, this translates into a mix of contemporary, mid-century modern and antique furniture in pale oak and richer chestnut tones, with black and patinated bronze accents, travertine, and textured ceramics. Occasional pieces in cool polished steel introduce elements of contrast, while breezy open-weave linen and jute bring softness.
Paint & flooring
Like the rest of the cottage, the dining room has beautiful light. It faces west, so it’s illuminated by a golden glow in the afternoon and evening, but it also gets morning light through the door from the east-facing living room behind. And the ground floor as a whole has a wonderful sense of flow: each room leads directly to the next, with no hallway between them. For us, this creates the ideal balance between separation and connection, openness and cosiness, and it suits the way we live perfectly.
To enhance these attributes, we’ve painted all walls, ceilings and woodwork in one colour, Farrow & Ball’s ‘Slipper Satin’ dead-flat emulsion. It’s a chalky off-white that’s neither too cool nor too warm, and it interacts brilliantly with everything from bright sunshine to flickering candlelight.
We’ve also used the same pale oak engineered hardwood flooring throughout the ground floor. It’s the ‘Wintry Forest Oak’ colourway from Quick-Step’s ‘Cascada’ range, which is fully waterproof and so suitable for kitchens and even bathrooms. It’s extra-matt, which creates a soft, organic look and a lovely tactility underfoot, and it has visible knots and variations that seem appropriate for a 200-year-old country cottage. It comes in elegant wide planks that give the illusion of more space than we actually have, and we’ve laid them continuously, with no thresholds between the various rooms, to lead the eye seamlessly from one space to the next.
The layout
The ground-floor layout did present a few challenges, however. The dining room essentially acts as a transit space from the front door to the rest of the house, and the staircase also goes directly off it. This means we had to leave clear paths to move through it while also ensuring it has a defined function of its own.
To achieve this balance, we positioned the table towards one corner of the room and anchored it within the wider space with a large jute rug. We then moved the pendant light to hang over the table rather than in the centre of the room and added a big linen shade from Baileys Home Store. This creates an intimate dining zone with an obvious focal point, with obstacle-free walkways around it to the staircase and living room.
The chairs
Anyone who’s followed this blog for a while will know that Carl Hansen & Søn’s CH24 ‘Wishbone’ is one of my all-time favourite chairs, especially since I was lucky enough to see how it’s made in person a few years ago. Created by Hans J. Wegner in 1949 and named after its famous Y-shaped back, it’s a true Danish design icon and now much-copied, but nothing beats the beauty and craftsmanship of the original.
I’ve always wanted to have ‘Wishbone’ chairs around our dining table but we didn’t have space in our previous home – although the house was bigger, the dining room was actually narrower. Now, I’ve been able to make my chair dream come true, with four ‘Wishbones’ from Holloways of Ludlow. My go-to for Scandinavian design in the UK, it has a long association with Carl Hansen and is currently hosting a takeover by the company at its flagship showroom in Bath; it even has its own exclusive ‘Wishbone’ finish – a dark chocolate stain called ‘Ebony’, which isn’t available anywhere else. I spent a while at the showroom choosing between the various colour options and eventually settled on oak with a white oil, which adds depth to bring out the beautiful grain of the wood while also lightening it.
The chairs work brilliantly with our rustic-minimalist décor, striking the perfect balance between humble and high-end, classic and modern, lightweight and supportive. They have a timeless aesthetic that won’t date and essentially act as a bridge between our antique and more contemporary pieces. I also love the texture introduced by the hand-woven paper-cord seats, and the way the curved backrests mirror the shape of our vintage Bertoia chairs at either end of the table. Most importantly, they’re very comfy, and we can happily sit in them for hours.
The sideboard
Adding some storage to the dining room was essential, and I loved the idea of having a gnarled dark-wood sideboard to offset all the smooth, pale oak. I spent hours trawling the internet for something the right size to sit under the stairs, eventually coming across a 1750s French dresser on Vinterior. It’s made of chestnut, with graceful carved detailing and a wonderful patina from centuries of use.
On top of the sideboard is an Audo Copenhagen ‘Reverse’ table lamp, again from Holloways of Ludlow. Its travertine base echoes the textures and tones of the Bath stone which our cottage is built from, and the mushroom-shaped bronze shade casts a warm, ambient glow that’s ideal for long, lazy meals with family and friends.
Fixtures, fittings & finishing touches
This cottage could well be our forever home, so getting the basic fixtures and fittings right was important to us – even if it means saving up for longer to finish other things.
Sadly the original internal doors were long gone, but we replaced the flimsy 1980s ones that the previous owner had installed with a solid timber four-panel design that’s much more in keeping with the house’s age and architecture. For the door between the dining room and the vestibule, we opted for partial glazing to maximise natural light. I got a little obsessed with choosing doorknobs and fell in love with a bronze oval design from Suffolk Latch Company. It’s an updated twist on a classic and we’ve used it throughout the house, along with bronze hinges, light switches and plug sockets.
Also in dire need of replacement were the tatty radiators, which we swapped for BestHeating’s ‘Milano Windsor’ column radiators with patinated brass valves. Again, they feature throughout the house and you’ll see more of them in future posts, but the one in the dining room is the biggest and a great example of their timeless, elegant aesthetic.
As for the dining room’s finishing touches, I’ve used the sideboard and the deep windowsill to display some of my favourite ceramics, along with a sculptural stainless-steel bowl from Sibast and objects made by my talented amateur-woodturner husband. I also had fun unpacking our artwork collection and selecting pieces for the walls. These include a minimalist charcoal drawing by Beatrice Felicki, and an abstract painting which somehow seems to alter in tone to reflect whatever flowers or foliage I place on the table. The blank swathe of wall leading to the living-room door, which we need to keep free of furniture, proved to be the ideal spot for a series of my own photos depicting places that hold special memories.
Of course, no room is ever truly finished and this space will continue to evolve. One day we’d like to strip the chimney breast back to expose the stonework, but that’s a job for further down the line. In the meantime, the dining room acts as a great introduction to our home and style, and we’re over the moon with what we’ve achieved so far. It’s a space we love spending time in, and it makes us feel proud every time we come down the stairs or through the front door.
All photography by Abi Dare
The flooring, ‘Wishbone’ chairs, ‘Reverse’ table lamp and radiator are PR products.
