Gorgeous blue and white chinoiserie filled dining room in the garage of Sally Swing’s Berkley Cottage featured in House Beautiful. I love this type of ambience, this type of kookiness mixed with vintage finds and loads of personality.
Blue and white chinoiserie, gifts from friends mixed with flea-market finds, defines the look Sally Swing envisioned. Like everything else, the dining tables and chairs — from her mother — got a wash of white enamel. Only the buffet was left unpainted to add visual weight to the room.
The one-car garage turned dining room opens onto a fenced courtyard. A stone path leads to the main house.
“Medium old” antique plates printed with a Blue Willow pattern are all part of the mix of dinnerware Sally displays with her linens in a glass-doored cabinet, which was made for a beloved uncle in China. He also purchased the 1940s blue stemware — at Woolworth’s in downtown San Francisco.
A dragonfly-patterned teacup is combined with vintage Ralph Lauren salad plates, a Danish stoneware dinner plate, and flea-market Chinese flatware.
China, the cat, sits on a painted chair covered in Ming fabric from Manuel Canovas. Mirrors bring in the light.
