I’m back with a house update! Gah…this will eventually be the dining room at my house! The dining room is such a special place to me as so many memories of the best conversations happen in the dining room…my little family’s daily ritual of Favorite, Least Favorite, Tomorrow…as well as deep conversations with friends involving both lots of laugher (and sometimes tears). It’s the place we bond over our favorite meals, catch up on the day, and chat long into the night after our kids have gone to bed…

Since the dining room is a space that’s meant to be filled with friends and family and tons of great conversation, I love the idea of a statement wall in the dining room. Why not have the wall be a conversation piece, too? I’m a huge fan of the work of SheShe, a female duo based in Minneapolis known for hand-painted murals and wallpaper. I don’t know exactly (yet) what we’re doing for this wall, but one of their past murals definitely feels right in line of the look I’m going for! And, because the wall will have a few different colors, we kept the rest of the furniture neutral with brass, cognac leather, white, and shades of grey!

1. Mural by SheShe, 2. Pendant lamp from Lamps Plus, 3. Dining table from Wayfair (coming soon!), 4. Mohawk wood floors in Beachwood Oak, 5. Dining chairs from Wayfair, 6. rug from Wayfair, 7. Emtek knob for cabinets,

While we’ll use this room for entertaining with friends, we also need it for daily meals with our kids. I don’t want anything to feel too precious and need it to be durable as well.

Here are a few things I kept in mind when designing a chic dining room to use (with kids):

Wipeable surfaces. As much as I love textured wood tables and upholstered chairs, this is the one of the areas in my house that there are no restrictions on food or drink. So, we chose a table where the surface was smooth and easily wipeable and chairs that could also be wiped down. While I love velvety upholstered chairs, they didn’t make as much sense in this room.

Size of dining table. We have a 6-person dining table in our current apartment, and it’s fine for an average night. But it gets tight when we have friends over or when we host Thanksgiving dinner. I would have loved a 10-person table here, but the room isn’t quite big enough so we compromised with an 8-person table which I’m VERY excited about.

To rug or not to rug? I’m always conflicted about rugs in a dining room. Rugs help to define a space, yet it feels odd to have something under a dining table that is harder to clean than the wood floor underneath. We have not finalized a rug here yet and curious to know what you guys think about rugs in dining rooms?

Stay tuned for more updates here and on Instagram…we are a few months away from being done so updates will keep coming as we get closer and closer!

{Photos by Lily Glass. Construction by Boswell Construction, Architecture by Project M+, Interiors in collaboration with Cleo Murnane at Project M+. All other layouts by Joy Cho. My dress is Mara Hoffman (past season), sweater is Misha and Puff, boots are Red Wing Heritage.}