Space of the Week: This Dining Room Shows How to Use Color, Pattern, and Plants to Design a Happier Home

A happy home comes highly recommended, and for good reason. A living space that boosts your mood will make you look forward to coming home, not to mention, make you happier every moment you spend there. Since there's no tried-and-true method for executing a dopamine-inducing design, creating a space that overflows with joy is an extremely personal process. However, a single glance at this vivacious dining room design by interior stylist and jewelry designer David Quarles IV suggests that the ideal blueprint to creating a happy home involves plenty of color, pattern mixing, and plants.

"There should be at least two or three elements in each space of our homes that bring a smile to our faces, serving as a constant reminder that in the grand scheme of things, everything is and will be alright," says Quarles (pictured, above).

Add pattern with wallpaper (or paint your own)

To make the most of the natural light that floods the dining room throughout the day, Quarles went with white paint, and originally had plans to use wallpaper for an accent wall. That the colorful design, undoubtedly one of the room's most eye-catching elements, was born during a moment of spontaneity makes it even more endearing.

"A lot was going on during that time—I had a parent in the hospital, and had a photoshoot happening in my home for which I had to finish the dining room design," Quarles says. "Once everything was OK with my parent, I made it back to the house, yet remembered that I still needed to finish the feature wall. Since there was still no wallpaper in any of the stores, I broke out my detail brushes and painted the wallpaper by hand!"

Layer colors

Quarles exhibits a lively way of layering colors by hanging a multi-hued painting on the accent wall, creating an uplifting palette that stems from the designer's rich cultural background. "I'm Creole, Dominican, Gullah, and Indigenous American," Quarles says. "Therefore, any colors that I incorporate in my art, jewelry, and home design reflect the vibrancy of colors commonly used during celebrations of my heritage."

Quarles also explains that he is a synesthete, or someone with the ability to hear color and visualize sounds, which further enhances his creative process. "I particularly process music, numbers, and emotions as color," Quarles explains. "So for me, color is more than a choice of what to use in a space. Color is how I experience life!"

Introduce plenty of plants

Speaking of life, plants are the perfect way to perk up your space. To practice self-care and maintain a connection with nature, Quarles currently has 101 plants. The majority of them are in this delightful dining room, leaving no confusion as to why it's such a happy place.

Get the Look: