If your family eats at the kitchen island and the formal dining room only fills up on holidays, you have two good options. You can give the room a different job, or you can keep it for meals and make it easier to live with. Dress Your Home took the first route in a Colleyville home, where the old dining room is now a wine room. For families who do sit down at the table, the second route is the Calloway Dining, where the studio stripped the heavy ornament out of a client's dining room. That job is one of the Dress Your Home portfolio projects you can look through.
The Colleyville job: from dining room to wine room
In the clients' home in Colleyville, Dress Your Home converted the original dining room into a wine room and created a new dining room for the family. The same renovation took in kitchen and bathroom renovations, along with a new primary bedroom and a new living space. In July 2026, replying to the homeowners' review, the studio wrote that the work would continue through late summer and into fall 2026. In that reply it also said it loves creating rooms that actually get used.
The homeowners' five-star review, posted that same month, says Veronica has taken on several projects in their house. According to the review, she brings ideas and direction while keeping the family's own likes and dislikes part of the conversation. The studio itself is based in Colleyville and works within about 30 miles across DFW.
Ask first whether anyone eats there
Before a floor or a fixture gets picked, the studio plans two to four listening conversations over about two weeks. One question on its list is whether the family really uses its formal dining room; another is how they cook. That answer decides whether the room stays a place for meals at all. If the table only comes out a few times a year, say so early.
Wine storage, big or small
A wine room can also be somewhere to sit.
This is the studio's own photo of the Holloway Wine Lounge, a room Dress Your Home refreshed and furnished. Its wine storage is built into the seating area, next to textured chairs and a stone accent wall.
If you only need storage, the wine can take far less space. The studio's Westmont project includes a glass-front wine cellar built under the staircase with black metal framing. That leaves the dining room open for whatever your family would actually use.
If you do eat there, lighten it
For families who sit down together often, the fix can be subtraction.
Here is Dress Your Home's own before-and-after picture of the Calloway Dining, a room the studio designed, where the ornament came out in favor of clean lines and a calmer palette. That follows one of the studio's working principles, Edit Ruthlessly, which means leaning toward restraint. Its article on what timeless design really means describes restraint as fewer materials and fewer statement moments. It also offers a test for any designer you're considering: ask to see work they finished ten years ago.
The studio has used the same restraint on a client's bookshelves. According to that client's review, she expected the shelves to need more decor, but Veronica took some of them out and simplified the rest. In its reply, the studio gave the reason: editing a display lets each of the owner's own pieces be seen on its own.
Decide in the right order
Whichever route you take, the studio settles hard finishes before soft finishes, and soft finishes before furniture. It works in that order because a sofa chosen before the floor is final can end up wrong for the room.
Flooring and lighting count as hard finishes, while wall color and drapery count as soft ones. In a dining room, that means the floor and the light fixture are settled before anyone shops for chairs, so the chairs get picked for the finished room.
Veronica works hands-on and sees each project through to completion. When the furniture arrives, the studio is on site for the install, hanging the art and arranging the bookshelves itself.
Tell the studio how the room gets used
If your dining room sits empty most of the year, start by telling the studio how often it really gets used and what your family would want from that space instead. You can send a few details about your project, and Dress Your Home follows up within one business day to set up a first conversation.
