Farmhouse Dining Room with Green Walls

When we first bought our farmhouse, the dining room was two layers deep in wallpaper with a really funky 70s style fireplace mantle. It wasn’t exactly our style. We immediately took off the wallpaper only to accidentally take up some of the plaster from the walls underneath off as wall. Horrified by the damage to the walls, we used the dining room as a storage room for a few years (since we have a lovely eat-in kitchen anyway). In the back of my mind, though, I always dreamed of a dark green dining room with a beautiful fireplace focal point. We finally got the dining room walls professionally re-plastered, painted, and moved the storage stuff out right before the pandemic. (Then the dining room became a homeschool room/ home office space. Of course.)

In any case, I realized I never shared photos on the blog of how this space turned out. I love the end result!

After: Farmhouse Dining Room with Dark Green Walls

Behold… our dark green walls for our farmhouse dining room:

The walls are Benjamin Moore’s Colonial Verdigris, the ceiling is Benjamin Moore’s Russell Green, and the fireplace mantle is Benjamin Moore’s . The trim is Benjamin Moore’s Capitol White (the same white as all the trim in our house and our kitchen cabinets). By the way, yes there is a little hole in the wall to the right of the fireplace mantle. We did it on purpose to expose the lathe and plaster (and horsehair!) which we discovered when we replaced the plumbing and tore holes in all the walls.

There are two horse prints on either side of the window above, and they belonged to David’s grandfather. I love that we have something of his in this room. They seem to fit perfectly.

Also– how gorgeous is that china cupboard against the wall? It belonged to my grandparents. It was in their dining room, but by the time I was born, that room became a sitting room, and my family spent maaaaany hours in that room laughing together. I smile every time I see the cupboard. I really hope to pass it along to my own grandkids one day with their own happy memories associated with it.

We had this fireplace mantle custom designed by a local carpenter. I gave him a photo of my grandparents’ fireplace in the den at their former 1790s farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley (btw, see that whole farmhouse tour here!). He changed the design slightly because our opening was not as wide as theirs. Their mantle has 5 panels above the opening and ours has 3, but otherwise, I honestly can’t tell the difference. I absolutely LOVE love love love this. It makes the whole house feel more historic. Obviously the house is historic, having originally been built in 1850. However, it underwent an awful renovation in the 1970s. So many of the charming historic details were removed and replaced with 1970s decor. This mantlepiece feels like it belongs here and could have been here in the 1800s.

So there you have it, everyone! Our dining room! Aaaaand now I’m off to finish packing. We only have a few short days until we depart our beloved farmhouse for England. I’ll write more on that soon, promise. 🙂