Divine dining

As different parts of our homes have become co-opted for different uses, like school, work or even the hobbies we take up to add some balance to all that school and work, the communal spaces where families and housemates can gather become all the more important.

Whether you have a vast, spacious home, a compact unit, or a shared rental property, a dining room can become both a social centre for your household, and a perfect canvas for some creative interior design.

Finding balance

Along with bathrooms, dining rooms require a well thought through balance of form and function.

That means your first step when planning a dining room makeover should be to ask yourself exactly what the room’s main function will be. Will it be solely used for family dining? How many people will it need to hold comfortably for regular use? Will it need to double as a work area? Will you mostly use it for entertaining? Do you want it to be intimate or expansive? Or do you want it to be formal or relaxed?

It’s not all one option or the other. If you want to keep things relaxed, it doesn’t mean you can’t smarten things up a bit for a special occasion. It just means you need a vision of how your dining room – or your outdoor dining area – will mostly be used so you can come up with a design that suits your lifestyle, your house, and the space you have to play with. Those decisions will then influence your colour choices as well as your furniture, decor and lighting.

Think about scale

It’s good practice to think about the scale of your space in any interior design, but it’s particularly true of dining rooms which need to feature key pieces of furniture to fulfil their function.

If you have high ceilings and/or a large room, a small delicate table runs the risk of getting lost or overwhelmed. Similarly if you have a smaller space a large table will not only be impractical, it will dominate everything else and make your room feel even smaller.

It could be that an oval or round table is going to work better with your room than a small square or a large rectangle.

Smart use of Resene paint colours can help you play with scale a bit more by creating optical illusions. In rooms with high ceilings, consider painting the ceiling in a bold shade that’s the same as the walls, for example. In a confined space try using light breezy neutrals or pastels like Resene Quarter Tea or Resene Gum Leaf and opt for layers of similar toned colours in your decor so your eye blurs the borders of the room.

If you have a large open plan room, but prefer a smaller, intimate dining area, create the illusion of walls by painting out a section in a contrasting colour to the rest of the space. Corners work particularly well for this. You can paint out the floor, walls and even the ceiling in the same colour so your dining area becomes visually contained and separate from the rest of the space. Wallpapering a section of wall in your favourite Resene wallpaper is another way to create a similar effect.

Top tip: To test the scale before buying a dining suite, mask the size of the footprint out in your space, including the chairs.

Don’t forget the flooring

A dining room floor needs to be both stylish and hard wearing. It’s going to need to take a bit more wear and tear than the floor in other parts of the house, with chairs and tables moving around, high traffic and a high likelihood of spills and stains.

Something like a classic black and white tile can look very smart and will be easy to clean, but can be unforgiving on any china or glassware that gets dropped on it. As an alternative you could consider painting your own tile design onto flooring.

Resene White and Resene All Black are perfect for those Art Deco-style black and white squares, but you could be more creative with stencilled designs to replicate other tiled looks.

Use Resene Walk-on flooring paint, for a tough surface that can take the knocks and scrapes, and for added protection, finish it with Resene Concrete Wax.

Stained wood flooring also works well in dining rooms and you’re not limited by colour. Opt for stains to emphasise the natural texture and fibre of the wooden floorboards in Resene Colorwood Natural or wood inspired shades such as Resene Colorwood Dark Rimu or Resene Colorwood Teak or try something more unexpected like the red tone of Resene Colorwood Red Pepper or blue Resene Colorwood Apollo Blue. You could also try a more beachy, relaxed finished with lighter Resene Colorwood Whitewash or Resene Colorwood Rock Salt.

Top tip: Rugs under the dining table are a useful way, not just to soften wood or tiled floors, but to help define a dining area within a larger space, and to save the floor from the occasional spill.

Lighting

The function of your dining room will be a big influence on the lighting you choose for the space. If it is going to double as a work or school area you’ll need good overhead bright lighting to supplement any natural light.

If you’re after a more intimate or formal dining space, think about dimmable lights that are warm, amber-toned rather than bright daylight tones.

If you can, experiment before committing to a particular type of pendant or downlight, so you don’t end up with awkward shadows over faces or eye-level glare, when family and friends are seated at the table.

Furnishing and flair

Dining rooms might seem as though they all need to be a bit similar, with a dining table in the centre with chairs around, but there are ways to mix it up a bit to create interest for your dinner guests, and ensure the space is fully functional.

• Add conversation pieces. A Resene wall mural or geometric wallpaper design on a feature wall, an unusual light fitting, vase or artwork, are great talking points to break the ice for dinner guests if you like to entertain.

• Add storage. Side boards, buffets or antique-style china cabinets can free up space in your kitchen cupboards by housing your cutlery, plates, platters and glassware while being handy to the table.

• If you can’t fit a sideboard for storage, floating stained wood shelves in Resene Colorwood Natural look fresh against dark walls, or Scandi-themed pastels.

• Consider a bench seat for one side of a rectangular table, allowing you to push the table against the wall for additional space.

• Place your round table off-centre in the room if you can to create a more interesting, usable space. Fill the extra space with a dramatic plant, an armchair or a drinks trolley.

Top tip: Aim to leave at least 50cm space anywhere people will have to walk around furniture.

Al fresco dining

When it comes to creating appealing and functional outdoor dining areas, it’s a good idea to think about function, lighting and how people will move around the space, just as you would indoors.

You can also play with scale a bit more when you’re creating outdoor rooms. The open air of al fresco dining changes how we perceive the scale of outdoor spaces. You’re less hemmed in by ceilings and walls, so it can be charming to place a small table in a large backyard, exactly where the sun hits for your morning coffee. It could be a dramatic talking point to have a large table in a smaller garden – particularly if you’re not fond of mowing lawns!

The factor you do have to consider for a successful outdoor dining area are shelter – from the sun as well as the rain.

If your al fresco dining area flows from the house, think about a colour scheme that connects it to the interior so it makes both spaces feel larger. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be the same. Outdoor areas are a great opportunity to play with bolder colours than you might be comfortable with inside. Use shades that reflect the flowers and plants in your garden, and mix up different wood stains or paint colours to give your dining area its own personality. As an example if your outdoor dining area is simply a small table on the lawn or some pavers, paint the table in a bold Resene paint colour to make it the star of the show. Try candy pink Resene Irresistible against emerald green lawn, or paint plain pavers in a dark berry like Resene Aubergine and top it with a small two-seater table and chairs in muted Resene Tom Tom for an elegant outdoor coffee spot.

February 21, 2022

For more dining ideas, see the Resene Decorating inspiration gallery online.

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