Safaniya Drive: Living + Dining Room

The Safaniya Drive Project was one of those incredibly exciting projects where I was given a great budget, and was told that I could pretty much do what I wanted to do… The only thing Vina really wanted was a space that was cozy and stylish. She also needed some storage and display areas for a lot of the small items (small dolls, ceramic houses, bowls, etc.) that she had collected from her travels and from living overseas. Other than that, I could keep or get rid of most of the stuff that was in this living & dining room.

It was also a project where there was a huge difference between what was actually in the house, and what the people living in it actually wanted. I saw lots of warm tones when I walked in (a whole accent wall in red), but when I asked Vina to make a Pinterest board for me, it was full of neutral palettes with grays and whites. I don’t think there was a hint of red anywhere! After discussing it with her, we both realized that we needed to go in a totally different direction.

So when a project is essentially a blank slate, I try to work off of how I would have imagined the space looking and how I would have wanted it to feel. Larger media units with open shelving have been popping up all over Instagram and Pinterest feeds for a while, and I swear, I have always imagined this working so well in a compound townhouse. I was just waiting for the right person to share my vision!

My main inspiration for the wall with the TV came from one of my favorite Interior Designers, Lindy Galloway, who created a beautiful wall of storage, seating, and open shelving for her Nor Cal Remodel project. We didn’t need the seating, and we needed a functional media unit for the TV, so I designed a piece with glass doors and drawers, which was made by Arabian SAS in Dammam. I also ordered my go-to beautiful black handles from Amazon for it.

We kept a few pieces, and let go of a lot. But I think it was worth it…

| BEFORE |

| AFTER |

As you can see, almost all of the items (except for a floor lamp) were taken out of the living room. We only kept a few pieces that made sense, and those were mostly in the dining room.

To accessorize the floating shelves, we bought a few items and plants locally, but really wanted to highlight Vina’s Japanese dolls, ceramic houses, an old telephone and a couple of decorative bicycles.

She also had a few pieces of unique artwork – a stone tile from a temple, a couple of Japanese paintings, and a tiled picture of men sitting in a doorway. The tiled frame of the men needed its moment, so we made it a feature of the large wall in the dining room. The stone tile from the temple was hung above the shelf with the dolls in the dining room. And the Japanese paintings were brought in from another part of the house to the living room as a nice pop of color!

Vina’s previous dining table was far too small for the space and too small to entertain. Sometimes you just need larger items to fill the space properly! We also added an IKEA chandelier for just a little bit more drama. I’m obsessed with it!

She had a small cabinet from the hallway that wasn’t being used for anything meaningful, so we turned that into a small drinks table in the corner of her dining room. We chose to keep the buffet/cabinet, but it was moved to the middle of the room to help divide the space. I really liked the shelf that she had for her dolls, so we kept it as a focal point on the smaller wall between the kitchen and hallway.

I hope you loved this project as much as I did. Thanks to Vina and Andy for letting me create something really exciting for them! 

Paint Color: Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray SW 7029

Dining Room: Rug, Pottery Barn | Dining Table, Bench, & Chairs, West Elm | Chandelier, IKEA | Black Vase, Zara Home (No longer available) | Curtains, Custom

Living Room: Rug, Ashley | Coffee Table, West Elm | White Vase, Zara Home (No longer available) | Gray Armchair/Recliner, West Elm | Light Gray Couch, Ashley KSA | Dark Blue Couch, West Elm | White Lamp, Pottery Barn | Marble & Wood Side Table, Pottery Barn | Floating Shelves, IKEA | Custom Media Unit, Design by The Design Souk Interiors & Made by Arabian SAS

Please note that some items are no longer available or were a part of Vina’s existing furnishing and accessories. Product information is not available for these items.

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