The domino Dream: (b)red week
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. Not tired like “need a nap,” but tired like “I never want to say the words FCC and Free Speech again in my life.” Every conversation lately has felt like a bar fight I didn’t even want to walk into. So I’ve decided to start my own political party. It’s called the Everyone Gets Along Party. EGAP for short. It’s not clever, but neither is anything that’s happening these days.
As a member of EGAP, you are entitled to 1 (one) muffin a month and must agree to get along with everyone, regardless of differing opinion. The muffins are just a perk—yes, once a month there will be muffins, blueberry or carrot or gluten-free banana if that’s your thing—but the real platform is appreciation. We need everybody. The nerds, the artists, the accountants, the hustlers, the left, the right, the ups, the downs, the sideways, the “out-theres”. The people who color inside the lines and the people who spill paint across the table. The world works because of this messy, surprising combination. Some of the most incredible things we take for granted are born from the friction of opposites.
Speaking of friction and opposites…
Let’s talk about my red dining room. Because I love this room. I love its chaos, its confidence, its refusal to whisper when it could shout. The walls are brazen, the rug is loud, the chairs are quirky, the shelves are a riot. This room is fun at a party, the friend with too many stories and too much jewelry, the one you always want next to you at dinner. There’s nothing wrong with it.
Let’s pause here for a second. If you haven’t already, you should read my two previous posts about my “Domino Dream”
So here’s the plan: edits, not erasures. The rug? Lovely, but too bossy (and, side note, moths—thanks, Etsy). The chairs? A fun spray-paint experiment, but not the cinematic gravity this space deserves. The clutter? Delightful, but Domino doesn’t tolerate “soap opera on a shelf.”
The direction is less about subtraction and more about balance. Let the red walls be the star. Give the chandelier space to sparkle without competition. Let the curtains frame rather than fight. Think Wes Anderson precision meets Kubrick restraint. Still bold. Still strange. Still me. Just with a little editorial hush layered in.
Because Domino rooms, like societies that actually function, aren’t about silencing the loud voices. They’re about arranging them so everyone can be heard. Appreciation over argument. Structure without losing the spark. Muffins.
The Rug
I feel like we should have a little drum roll or a curtain raise or something…
But let’s start with the rug. The current rug doesn’t work, not because it isn’t pretty, but because it doesn’t play its role properly. In a Domino room, everything has a job. The curtains and the incarnadine red walls are the stars of this show—bold, brazen, cinematic. What the rug should be is a foil: something that steadies the drama, that gives the red a surface to bounce off of without diluting its power.
But here, the rug is that extra doodad Coco Chanel warned us about—the one you should take off before leaving the house. On its own, it’s fine. Add it to this ensemble, and suddenly the outfit tips from daring to overdone. It’s not that the rug is fussy; it’s that it pushes the room past its Domino threshold.
And then, as if to underline the point, it arrived with moths. The moths then moved on to my other rugs and now my clothes. Do. Not. Buy. Rugs. On. Etsy. They look great online and are cheap, but they often arrive different as pictured and the return policy is a nightmare. Plus, there isn’t any quality control like there are on retail websites like DWR, 2Modern, NordicKnots and Revival.
I was having trouble returning on Etsy, even after taking pictures, so in order to get any sort of return on my investment, they gave me 50% of my money back in exchange for a positive review of their store. And even if you do manage to get a return, the return shipping to Morocco is astronomical and often cost prohibitive. So, I repeat. Do. Not. Buy. Rugs. On Etsy.
Etsy giveth, Etsy taketh away, but livestock isn’t Domino-approved styling.
So the rug goes—not because it’s wrong in a vacuum, but because in this specific drama, it’s the accessory that makes the star look less sharp.
The rug search turned into its own subplot of the Domino Dream. Once I admitted the current rug wasn’t Domino, I went hunting. And I flirted with so many possibilities. Each one promised something, each one whispered “pick me.” But one by one, I had to let them go.
The Almosts
(Click on images for product page)
The Ochre Ovals
I loved its geometry — disciplined, Kubrickian, as if it could impose order underfoot. But that was the problem: too orderly. My dining room thrives on eccentricity. This would have pressed it into a grid. The color was not right.
The Brown Grid
Minimal, cerebral, a design professor’s rug. At first I thought: maybe this is the foil. But next to the red walls it looked stern, academic. Domino doesn’t want stern — it wants witty.
The Green Squares
Bauhaus play, little white dots like confetti. For a moment, it felt cheeky and right. But then I realized it was another jokester in a room already cracking jokes. Too many punchlines, not enough pause.
The Pale Olive
Elegant, recessive, the quiet friend. But Domino doesn’t reward disappearing acts. It just sat there, polite, fading away.
The Golden Ochre
Glowed like a late-autumn sunbeam. I wanted to love it. But when I paired it with the incarnadine red, it tilted into competition. Two stars fighting for the spotlight.
The Rose Wild Card
Soft, romantic, a surprising tenderness against the walls. But then it tipped into valentine territory. Sweetness was never the point of this room.
The Honey Shag
A decadent fantasy — martinis and shag carpeting, like something out of a 1970s movie. But crumbs don’t lie, and Domino doesn’t Photoshop mess. Fantasy, not function.
The Bright Ochre Fringe
Joyful, sun-lit, so cheerful it almost hurt. This was the friend who never stops smiling, even at funerals. My red walls need drama, not relentless optimism.
The Camel Wool
Elegant, neutral, buttery soft. But too safe. It smoothed out all the edges and drained the tension. Domino likes a little edge in the mix.
The Winner
Jude Handloom Wool Rug - DWR
The Ochre Grid
And then there was this one. Warm ochre, structured but not rigid, patterned but not noisy. The grid gave architecture without severity. It nodded to order but left room for eccentricity. It didn’t disappear, but it didn’t shout. It stood calmly, grounding the curtains and the red, letting them take the stage.
After trying to date all the others, this was the one I wanted to marry.
Image generated by ChatGPT! Not perfect, but you get the idea.
But wait - there’s more!
This is what I see whenever someone says that
The Chair Saga
If the rug was the stagehand, the chairs were supposed to be punctuation. Instead, they kept auditioning for the lead.
The truth is, Domino wants drama — but it also wants simplicity. It doesn’t mind a bold move, but it hates when ten bold moves pile on top of each other. Domino rooms have stars and supporting actors, not an ensemble all shouting their lines at once.
And these chairs? These were fireworks. In a neutral room, each one could have been a star. In a gallery-white space, they would have sung. But in a dining room already drenched in incarnadine, flanked by curtains that shout in cobalt blue, glittering under a chandelier that looks like an exploding molecule? Fireworks become noise. They do not get along.
(Click on images for product page)
The Platner Chairs
Sculptural chrome and lemon velvet — architectural fireworks. Too shiny, too echo-y with the chandelier.
The Cognac Cantilevers
Swaggering, boardroom bold. But the color muddied the red walls. Fireworks in the wrong hue.
The Olive Velvets
Rich, yes. But earthy against the red read military, not Domino. Fireworks gone flat.
The Chrome Frames with Sherpa Cushions
Textural, cheeky, Domino-adjacent. But too much chrome, too much sparkle. Fireworks colliding with fireworks.
The Rust Velvets
Beautiful in isolation. But rust against incarnadine looked like a failed color match. Domino doesn’t tolerate “almost.”
The Rattan Sculpturals
Sculptural, yes. But too rustic AND extremely expensive per chair. Fireworks lit on the beach while the chandelier was demanding Kubrick.
The Wavy Woods
Polished, elegant, pin-worthy. But in here? Too safe. Fireworks doused before they could spark.
The Blocky Italians
Graphic, bold. But too heavy in a room already bursting with weighty color. Domino wants a gasp, not a grunt.
The Mod Pedestals
Playful, space-age. But in this context, sterile. Fireworks in a dentist’s office.
The Winner
After rejecting all the fireworks, I had to ask myself what I actually wanted. The answer came suddenly, like lemon zest grated over a salty, oily French fry. If you haven’t tried it, what are you waiting for?
Plastic.
Because plastic cuts through the murk. It’s sharp, architectural, unapologetically modern. It doesn’t try to match the drama of the chandelier or the curtains — it sidesteps it, slips in from the side with a wink. Plastic is art and cheapness at once, which is exactly the point. Domino loves the high/low, the “why does this work when it shouldn’t?” Plastic is that move.
And let’s be clear: I’m not in the business of $2000-a-chair chairs. I don’t want to sit down to dinner and calculate the GDP of my seating arrangement. I want something bold, sculptural, unexpected, and accessible.
There’s really only one choice. The classic Panton Chair.
It’s the chair that isn’t trying too hard because it doesn’t have to. A single swoop, a single material, stackable if you need it, sculptural even when you don’t. In a color-drenched room like this, it doesn’t compete — it slices through the noise, balances the whole scene, and suddenly makes everything else look intentional.
The Panton chair is Domino distilled: drama, simplicity, and a touch of irreverence.
So here’s the fun part… which color did I choose? Which color is unexpected? Clean? Creates tension? Hint — it’s not white.
WHICH COLOR DID I CHOOSE?
LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
So that’s it for (B)RED Week. And if you’re wondering why I called it that, you’re not a British Bake Off fan. You’re just not.
Next week, I’m diving into a few different projects. It could be my living room. It could be the master. I haven’t decided yet, so I’m going to go against my own OCD instincts and lean heavily into my ADHD instincts and decide the night before. Because that’s how I roll… get it bread week?
