Hope everyone’s having a good weekend! I decided to tackle a few projects in my dining room and wanted to share the results. This room has appeared in many of Mirror80’s Retro Foodie posts, and to be honest, it’s always been a work in progress. As you can tell by the photo above, it’s not a strictly ’80s space, although it does feature many ’80s elements. I like to call it “retro eclectic”… Despite the high ceilings, it doesn’t get a ton of light, which will explain why some of the images aren’t clearer. But hopefully that won’t get in the way of today’s room tour. Let’s get started:

As you can see in the photos, my retro eclectic dining room features a series of brass gridded cubes, which I’ve assembled on the wall as an art installation. The cubes are available at CB2 in sets of three. I ordered 5 sets to create the design above. And you can also probably tell that this weekend I added some plants to the dining room. Both were purchased in the indoor plant section of Home Depot. The large plant is a ZZ Plant, and the small selection is a Polka Dot Plant (I actually moved this one over from another area of the house).

The small planter was purchased at a local craft store  (you may remember it from this post on retro-style plants), and the large planter is a quick-fix design solution involving contact paper. In fact, one of my favorite ways to get the “retro planter look” is to tape a section of contact paper around the plastic pot that the plant came in. This buys me some time to find a good planter on sale. Not to mention, you don’t even have to remove the protective backing and stick the contact paper to the pot underneath. Simply use tape to secure it at the top of the planter so it makes a cylinder shape (often the plastic pots these plants arrive in are tapered, making cutting, peeling and sticking the contact paper a difficult task).

Let’s talk about the art! The two serigraphs you see above were a gift from my friend Jeff. They were on display in his Dad’s office in the 1980s! The pieces (called Triune and Paragon) are by Brian Halsey. You can see more of his amazing work in this post. About the wall hanging: I crafted it from copper piping and yarn. I’ll go into more detail on the changes I made to this wall a bit later in the post. But first, I wanted to highlight the “mixed metals” look in this dining room. As you can tell, I’m a big fan of combining silver and gold tones! One more look at the cubes…

So what inspired this weekend’s dining room makeover?! This is the first wall you see when you enter our house. And it was starting to feel really heavy. The black frames definitely helped define each piece, but I felt like the artwork got lost in them. I also wanted to lighten up the wall hanging by switching out the dark yarn with some brighter pieces to breathe new life into the room. So here’s what happened…

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I know—silver is an odd choice for the frames, right? I actually spray painted them gold first. And believe me when I say that it was totally overwhelming. Yes, this is coming from a girl who loves brass! Plus, my secret hope is to track down an ’80s geometric mirror that I spotted on the set of the AMC drama Halt and Catch Fire and hang it in between the two serigraphs. The mirror is filled with brass details, and folks, when you factor in the brass pieces on top of my dining room table, that’s a LOT of gold! Even for me. Somehow the silver frames are a breath of fresh air. And so is the lighter wall hanging!

I get a lot of questions about the pendant light. It’s from IKEA! Here’s one more shot of my dining room, which features the tabletop:

The brass bowl, brass candleholders and cut glass candleholders (which I use as vases) are all from CB2. Can you tell this is my go-to place for affordable retro-modern decor?! Thanks for letting me share another room of my home. Check out my home office tour and bedroom tour for more interior design fun. Cheers!