- Date Published:
- 09/06/2008
Furniture
This has to work with the shape of the room and for the way you want to use your dining area. With any room it's important to move your key furniture in first and for the dining room that will always mean the table.
The table is so important in the dining room it is worth spending a substantial proportion of your budget on.
Old and new pieces can look really good together as long as you follow a few simple rules so don't be afraid to mix styles and eras.
- Contrasting styles work best when the surroundings are understated. So think plain walls, plain floors.
- If you have a favourite item, perhaps a family heirloom, make this piece the starting point and work out your design from there.
- Link items of different ages using the texture and colour of upholstery fabrics, for example a new sofa and an antique footstool.
- Antique furniture can look great recovered in a modern design, but make sure it's not worm ridden first.
- With second-hand chairs, make sure that the height of the seat is right for the height of your table before you buy them.
- But no matter how eclectic your tastes, how varied your genres and bizarre your objects the key to mixing old and new is to keep it simple and uncluttered.
Lighting
Like any room the dining room will need general, task and feature lighting. There are three things to think about.
- Think about the fact that you're sitting at the table light is casting a lovely warm atmosphere over the table top itself so it's lighting up over the table.
- You don't want it be shining harsh glary light into the eye so it mustn't be too high that you can see the bulb.
- If you're leaning across the table you don't want to head butt it.
Dining Room Crimes
- Being too far away from the kitchen.
- Being too close to a cloakroom.
- Having pet food bowls or even worse litter trays within diners' line of sight.
- Having too big a dining set in too small a space.
- Rare usage.
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