How many people do you know that say, “we never use our dining room,” “It’s the lowest on the decorating priority list,” “We only use it on holidays,” “My parents gave us their old dining room set and so we stuck that in there”
I’ve heard all of these excuses.
It’s obvious how this room functions, but when you think more specifically about what kind of experiences you have in your home, it can bring you closer to turning an unused room around.
No matter how you use it, we need to send boring, matched dining room sets and heavy draperies out with the next purge and go casual, with style of course.
Questions to ask yourself about your forgotten dining room:
What kind of food do you cook?
Do your family or guests tend to linger at the table, engage in friendly or unfriendly debates, have too much wine and divulge?
Do you have dinner parties? Entertain?
Do you want to be able to mix cocktails here? Music?
Is the dining room open to living area?
How big is the dining space?
Do you have china or a finer set of dishes or serving ware separate from the everyday?
Do you kids, How do your kids use the space at this age?
And now to illustrate, here are some casual dining rooms that I’m all about:
Are you noticing any trends yet?
I seem to like books in the dining room and I gravitate toward both dark enveloping dining rooms as well as light filled rooms.
Dinner around the table where I grew up almost always ended with an encyclopedia or two to prove some point or another. I love the idea of a library/dining room combo.