Small north facing room - embrace the darkness?

[SoDamnEasyToCaveIn]

We're redoing our tiny dining room after water damage. It's 3m x 3.5 and irritating because it has 3 doors - an arch to kitchen, a door to dining room and a patio door so it's awkward for a table!

It's north facing and we're thinking about just embracing the darkness and going for a walnut type floor and dark blue or green walls (walls in sitting room are teal). We will get a small, dark table but nice bright chairs (like yellow).

Could this be lovely or would it just be depressing?

My dining room is actually East facing so gets loads of sun in the morning but is dark by the early evening. We painted it in a sort of F&B Hague Blue and just embraced it. We aren't reading in it, we are eating in it.

Lighting can really change a room. Lamps are good for softer lighting. No one really eats under a bright strip light. But think about lighting before you start, where can you put it or add it.

The yellow chairs sound amazing.

We painted our small north facing study in F&B Vardo (dark teal), with a teal and gold lampshade and a soon to be delivered yellow velvet sofa bed. Looks brilliant.

We painted our old north facing dining room dark blue and loved it. We did paint the floorboards a very light grey though. And then had a mustard rug and blind and copper accessories.

It was lovely and cosy for dinner parties and we never regretted it for a minute.

We did ours a dark red - worked really well with the dark wooden beams, 2 exposed stone walls and a huge stone fireplace.
Very atmospheric.

I painted my north facing dining room dark red to create an atmospheric effect - it was a copy of a farrow and ball colour. I'm going to be honest - it was lovely initially, particularly on a dark winters night with the log burner going and the fairy lights on ! Come spring/summer it just felt cold and dark and I just longed for light and airyness so we've had it redecorated with a pale green and cream floral sanderson wallpaper and it's just so much better. Even our generally unopinionated decorator said it was nicer

I have a west facing lounge which is small and generally quite dark. We went with the darker colour idea and we love it. We've now seen it through all the seasons and it really works for us. We didn't do full on dark or navy but went with dulux denim drift, which I would say is a muted blue grey, looks Lovely with pink, white and coppery colours.

I nearly went with a lighter duck egg and I think for a dining area that might be an idea, like Kurz says. I guess a room that predominantly sit to eat in might benefit from light and airy?

Pics

My nephew has a black bedroom, his white IKEA furniture really pops against it and he has great lighting/ spotlights. Embrace the dark, once you go black you never go back 😉