UpdatedOct 11, 2018 6:14 PM EDT — back when this felt inspiring rather than personally insulting
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IKEA furniture,string lights, and the odd college pennant: things you’d expect to find in the natural habitat of a university student. What you wouldn’t expect? A grown-up mélange of antique treasures, contemporary accents, and bespoke artwork — and yet that’s exactly what’s strewn about 21-year-old Kevin O’Gara’s sophisticated dining room. Excuse us while we quietly question every life choice we made at 21.
Then again, O’Gara is hardly your average 21-year-old (we’re starting to suspect he’s a 45-year-old in disguise). The Cornell junior is the voice behind design blogThou Swelland already has arug collectionunder his belt — a sentence most of us can’t even dream of uttering. He sharpened his style by redecorating both his parents’ homes approximately a thousand times; in fact, this latest transformation is a dining room in his mother’s newly purchased house, which he is fully renovating himself from the ground up. “The house was very outdated,” says O’Gara, who cites his hometown ofAtlantaas a major style muse. “Everything was stuck in time: Wall-to-wall carpeting, floral wallpaper in the bathrooms, warm, yellow-toned woods… I wanted to update it and make it feel more sophisticated.” (Read: less 1987, more right now.)
His master plan: blend old heirloom furniture, like an antique buffet table and dining chairs upholstered in a cheeky lemon pattern, with more contemporary touches. Step one? Swap the polished brass chandelier for something sleeker. “Changing it made such a huge impact because it’s a focal point at the center of the room,” says the blogger. (Translation: that old chandelier was the villain of the room.)
After a few “minor” updates — he changed the door and ripped out the carpeting (casual) — O’Gara’s first renovation was, frankly, a triumph. The old-meets-new balance is executed so well you’d assume a seasoned pro was responsible, not someone who can’t legally rent a car yet. We grilled O’Gara on how he mastered the art of juxtaposition in this charming dining room.
For O’Gara, the star of the show was the antique chairs. “I’ve always loved that fabric so much,” he says of the chairs. “But they’ve always been in warm-toned rooms with an orange-y color palette. I wanted to see them in a room that pulled the blue-green out of the print.” Enter: Clare paint’sHeadspace. The refreshing hue, paired with the yellow from the chairs and the pink from the curtains, makes for a color palette that’s slightly unexpected — in the best possible way.
Speaking of the blue walls — they’re the secret weapon keeping this antique-stuffed room airy instead of suffocating. “When it comes to the dark wood you’ll find on vintage pieces, I think it looks super fresh with a cooler color palette—it’s a good way to balance out some of the richness you get from the wood,” explains O’Gara. If your furniture is similarly dark, try a zingy wall color like blush pink or lemon yellow to keep your space from going full monochrome snooze-fest. Conversely, richer hues (jewel tones, dusty colors) will play up the old-school drama of darker antiques.
According to O’Gara, the dining room was previously a cookie-cutter plain box with all the charm of a shipping container. Layering in older pieces definitely injected some personality, but the blogger also turned to visual trickery — painting floor-to-ceiling bookshelves the same color as the walls to feign architectural detail where there was none. “Bookshelves are a great way to add architecture to a space without having to renovate anything, and painting them will make them look custom,” says O’Gara. “They look built-in and add a lot of structure to the room.” Optical illusions: not just for magicians anymore.
“Having a chandelier that carried a lot of weight in the room was important,” says O’Gara. He knew he wanted to swap out the Williamsburg-style chandelier for a more contemporary fixture, but cautions that blending old and new isn’t as simple as tossing in a modern piece. You have to think about the details. “Make sure that when you do bring in new pieces, they have the same visual impact because you will often get smaller dimensions with modern pieces,” he warns. Translation: don’t let your new stuff look wimpy next to your antiques.
O’Gara knew he was working with a base of darker wood, so his mission was to smuggle in a variety of materials that would create delightfully unexpected pairings. His go-to ismarble, which he says balances out richer finishes and still feels super classic. “I also liked the idea of bringing in some matte white to the space,” says O’Gara, pointing to the sculptural vase on the dresser. “For the painting above the buffet, I really wanted a lot of white and cream to make it a little warmer and bring it into the chairs.”
And as for that painting’s origin story? Surprise — it’s an O’Gara original. “I actually painted it for the room. It was so much fun to dive into that—it’s one medium that I don’t practice regularly, but I do love,” he says. So yes, he’s also an artist. We give up.
See more dining rooms we’re obsessed with:We Never Wanted Bird Wallpaper Until We Saw This Dining RoomEverything We Love About Mid-Century Design in One Dining RoomThese Dreamy Dining Rooms Will Inspire You to Ditch Your Clutter (Eventually)
Elly enjoys covering everything from travel to funky design (tubular furniture, anyone?) to the latestcultural trend. Her dream apartment would exist on the Upper West Side and include a plethora of mismatched antique chairs, ceramic vessels, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases—essential to her goal of becoming a poor man’s Nora Ephron. You can probably find her in line at Trader Joe’s. You will never, ever find her at SoulCycle.
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