House Post: Let's Talk Dining Room

As I type this, the man cave is making giant leaps forward, but it's not ready for primetime yet. So we'll have to recap that next week, or possibly the week after.

This week, I am seeking your advice & thoughts on the dining room. It's going next.

Previously, we pulled up the carpet, replaced the light fixture, patched the holes in the ceiling, and pulled down some of the wallpaper, but that's it so far. The bulk of it needs to be done still.

Here's what it looks like right now.

The fourth wall is almost entirely french doors.

My husband wants badly to keep the stenciling underneath the wallpaper, but I strongly suspect that won't be possible. In the small amount we've already pulled off, it's clearly pretty badly damaged, both by holes and by plaster near the ceiling. Odds are there are other bad parts on the rest of the wall that just can't be saved - or would require extensive cleaning and inpainting to look decent, and that is soooooooo not in the budget. If the budget extends to art conservation, that will go toward the mud room mural.

So, what to do?

For a long time, my best idea was arts & crafts wainscoting. In this scenario, we'd make custom wainscoting out of maple lengths all around and either a) paint it or b) stain the wood and paint the wall behind.

Here's the style I'm talking about, in a few variations.

I don't see us going too high with it - maybe mid-level to the windows. Not shoulder-height as in traditional styling. That always feels a bit crowded to me. (Though we could have a whole stylistic conversation about whether it's truly arts & crafts wainscoting if it's not so high?)

Then I saw these pictures, and cue heavy breathing.

Now I'm not sure what to do.

I think I need to start sketching this out, maybe? What about one of these art deco fans in the middle of the larger wainscoting from my first idea?

Am I just getting waaaaaaaaay too complicated?

So the options are:

- art deco wainscoting, and if so, white, all wood, or wood frame with paint behind?

---and if the above, dark paint on the top or the bottom? color scheme will stay the same: maroon & cream

- something more elaborate like the middle examples?

- art deco wainscoting with a fan design in the center?

Which would you do?