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Choosing The Ideal Accent Wall Color For Your Dining Room

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Your dining room is one of the few places in your home where ambiance and eating go hand and hand. Meaning, whether you are entertaining guests or just sitting with your family, how the dining room feels creates an enjoyment around your meal. One way to create a beautiful dining room is to bring in an accent wall that draws the eye in.

Accent walls are usually a coordinating or contrasting color, but can also use stone, wallpaper or other finishes to set it apart from the rest of your dining room walls. If you have been looking at your dining room and are trying to think of some unique accent wall color ideas, here are a few to get your creative juices going!

Choose the ambiance you’d like to create in your dining room

by KDS Interiors / Randy Smith Photo

Select an ambiance that you’d like to create: 

When you dine at your favorite restaurant, part of the experience is how enjoyable the food is and the service, but another important factor is the ambiance. Selecting an ambiance for your dining room will help you create the ideal feelings in your space. For a formal dining room consider using a bold print wallpaper or a dramatic and deep color such as brown, red, green or any deep color that feels dramatic and sophisticated.

For a more casual dining room choose lighter colors that feel more earthy and organic to create a natural and less formal dining experience.

Dark colors for your accent wall add dramatic overtones

by Elad Gonen & Zeev Beech

Lighter and energetic colors can create the perfect casual room

Adrienne Chinn Design / Photos: Magdalena Plewa-Ould

Lighting up your accent wall:

While you may think color is the only way to bring attention to an accent wall, the other way is to add beautiful light! Candles, lighting sconces, pendant lights, or even directional lighting highlighting your favorite artwork hanging on an accent wall can bring instant appeal to your dining room wall.

Accent wall colors can play off of the illumination source you use. Wall shelves in deep woody browns or small rock shelves from a flagstone or natural stone accent wall can all be the added brightness you were looking for to enhance your dining room.

A simple square wall sconce like this one from Amazon can brighten up an accent wall

by Charlie Simmons – Charlie & Co. Design

Accenting shared dining spaces:

If your home has a dining room that shares walls with other rooms such as the kitchen, living room, or a hallway, you can still create a focal point and accent a portion of the wall that shares the dining room space. Look at the natural architecture of your rooms and decide where the break in direction of wall, or create your own visual divider by stopping paint and color at corners and wall intersections.

This will help tie your multiple rooms together functionally, but will also help the two spaces complement each other in color while still sending a message to the eye that your dining room has its own unique personality.

A shared dining room can still have a beautiful accent wall

by FORMA Design

Your dining room should be a room that you love to serve your favorite holiday meals, or your family gathers every night for a home cooked dinner. Adding ambiance with an accent wall is the perfect way to set the mood to match your design style, but also matches the lifestyle of your family.

The next time you sit down to dinner, look around your dining room and see if it could benefit from a great accent wall!

Ronique Gibson

Ronique Gibson is an Associate Architect and a LEED Accredited Professional, who has been in the architectural and interior design industry for over 13 years. Her architectural background has lent to years of hands on experience with homeowners, construction, and helping people love their homes. Ronique’s passion for finding inspiring and easy[...]

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