Thanksgiving Countdown: Decorating Our First Dining Room with Wayfair

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post in partnership with Wayfair; all opinions expressed are my own. 

In 17 short days my family will come together for our first Thanksgiving in our new home and in the wake of recent news while we always acknowledge the importance of family, this year's gathering feels especially sacred. 


While I'm excited to have a dining room at last this holiday season, it's also been a bit intimidating. When we were house hunting we noticed the dining room in this home was exceptionally large. Since we were out of town last year for Thanksgiving we've taking our time decorating the dining room, and as a Wayfair Homemaker I created mood boards sharing with Mr. Lovebird ideas for decor. 

Here are the 3 steps we took to creating our dining room:

1) Start with a color palette

With existing cream walls and white paneling, we knew we wanted warmer hues in our dining room plus I have a penchant for silver accents so when I saw the nailhead accents on the Foster 7 Piece Dining Set I was sold! I especially like how the table is expandable from a 6-seater to an 8-seater, so I have my eyes on a pair of Argana Arm Chairs (also with nailhead accents!) for future, larger gatherings.

2) Anchor the room with a rug

Mr. Lovebird and I agreed that we wanted to bring plenty of color into the dining room allowing it to inspire eventual window treatments, wall decor and additional tabletop accents. A friend recommended ikat print which led me down a path of finding some beautiful options. We went with a colorful, 9x12 Balthrop Wool Hand Tufted Area Rug - the largest sized rug we have in our home, and we absolutely love it! It's so soft underfoot and even when we expand the table there will be plenty of space all around it for our guests. 

3) Select complimentary accents

Texture was my top priority when selecting accents for our dining room. The 35" square "African Moment I" giclee print picked up the hues of our rug and left room for other tones as our dining room evolves. I opted for an ivory Wendt Table Runner to compliment our existing paneling selecting one that had embroidered stitching and cut-outs giving it dimension. 

For our dinner napkins, I selected pumpkin Jute Woven Napkin Rings to compliment the centerpiece: Tuscan Foliage Floral Arrangement in Basket. Created with preserved orange and green maple leaves, orange flax pods, natural oats, pinecones, quince slices and lime green sudan grass, the natural element of the woven twig basket is a beautiful way to bring nature into our dining room. 

Two more elements we still need to add are a sideboard table and window treatments - I'm in love with all the light our dining room gets through our bay window. For now thanks to Wayfair we're feeling ready for welcoming family into our home for our first Thanksgiving in our new home!

Head over to Wayfair.com to check out more of my Thanksgiving-inspired Blogger's Picks featured for the next couple weeks, and I've permanently included them in this post.