The
dining room as a family gathering place has
been challenged in recent years as we lead busier lives. Sunday dinners
featuring a roast shared with extended family are mostly long gone/nostalgic. Projects
like Harvard’s The Family Dinner
Project
emphasize the need for families and communities to schedule regular times to
share meals.
If
your dining room is the most underutilized space in your home, you may need
some dining room inspiration to help you reclaim it. Whether you have dinner
together as a family seven nights a week or can only manage a regular Sunday
brunch, scheduling time to break bread with family and friends is important. Discover
five decorating ideas to ensure your communal meals are held in a place that’s
not only comfortable but beautiful.
1. Mismatched dining chairs
One of the biggest trends in home decor is
dining chairs that don’t match. Introducing an eclectic component to your decorating
scheme can have many benefits, including heightening the sense of individuality
and belonging in what is often the most formal room in a home.
Additionally, if different chairs really don’t
appeal to you, modify the concept by painting identical wooden chairs different
colors (just like color-coding family toothbrushes). Or, you can choose a
series of complementary fabrics in colors that match your decorating scheme to
reupholster the seats. It’s the same idea as throw pillows: not too focused on
matching, but with a unifying color theme.
2. New lighting
There are so many beautiful and
energy-efficient lighting fixtures available today that there’s no excuse to
settle for something you don’t love. Changing an overhead light and installing
a dimmer switch is one of the easiest and cheapest home renovations you can
make. Good, adjustable lighting will dramatically increase your comfort.
Lighting trends for 2019 include wicker and
other natural fibers to add texture, asymmetry and even avant-garde shapes. If
you’ve got a long, narrow dining room and rectangular furniture, add some
curves with a few pendant lights that spotlight the head and foot of the table.
3. Go eclectic
Despite its function as one of the most primal
family gathering places, the dining room tends to be underutilized. Since it is
a family gathering place, display family memorabilia.
That
china cabinet you inherited from Great Aunt Mabel doesn’t have to be filled
with bone china teacups, crystal pickle servers and liqueur glasses. Use it to
display Oregon beach glass, Caribbean seashells, family photos or a sculpture
collection. Mount the masks you’ve collected in your travels, create an
ancestral family tree or show off your pottery.
Instead of paint, why not spend a Saturday
morning creating a feature wall with stick-and- peel wallpaper? Paint the
buffet Chinese red or French blue. Invest in some linen or silk removable
slipcovers for your dining chairs. Mixing industrial with glam is also a great
choice.
4. Bring the outdoors in
Some of the most elegant dining rooms have
French doors leading onto a patio. If you can’t make that happen, think about
replacing and enlarging a window or adding another. Another option is to feature
elaborately patterned area rugs. They anchor your dining table and establish a
clear traffic pattern for the room. However, keeping them clean takes time and
money. If you buy a natural fiber rug, you won’t have to feel guilty about
composting it in a few years.
5. Consider designating the room a dual-purpose area
If you’re short of space or just don’t like the
idea of a room going to waste, turn your dining area into the family library.
Bookcases don’t take up a lot of room and provide great sound insulation
between rooms.
Using
the dining room as a designated homework area is a good idea if you want assignments
done before dinner. If you’re child-free, use the dining room as a home office.
When you’re looking
for dining room
inspiration, spend some time in the room at breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight
snack hours. This will help you assess its flaws and features as you plan to
make your dining room a comfortable and beautiful gathering place.