How to Furnish Your Dining Areas

How to furnish your dining areas. White text over a pink hued breakfast nook.

Selecting cohesive, functional, and stylish dining room furniture isn’t as simple as it seems. Whether you’re arranging a cozy breakfast nook, a formal dining room, or navigating the nuances of an open-concept eating area, understanding the essentials of furniture layout is key. This guide will walk you through the basics, ensuring your dining space is welcoming and beautifully arranged.

This blog is an adaptation of our podcast. If you’d prefer to listen or watch, click the links below.

FINDING THE PERFECT TABLE SIZE

Determining Table Size & Clearances

First things first. The table is your first stop in all of this. Selecting the right one requires more than just eyeing your favourite design. To avoid scale issues, you must whip out your trusty measuring tape to find the right dining room furniture.

Start by measuring your room. The golden rule? Maintain 36 inches of clearance from the edge of your table to walls, door swings, and buffet tables. This ensures ease of movement around the dining area.

You might want to seat six in your dining area, but do you have the space? For diner comfort, aim for 24 inches of space per person at the table, though 18 inches can work in tighter spots or for children. In generous dining rooms, you can allow for 27 to 30 inches per diner.

If, after subtracting your clearances from the room size, you’re left with a tiny postage stamp table where no diners will fit, something has to give. The minimum clearance from the edge of your table to other obstacles is 24 inches. This won’t give you room to casually walk behind a seat filled by a hungry diner, but it will offer the diner enough space to feel comfortable.

It’s okay if your dining table is not centred in the space to allow for clearances. Design is about balance. Consider the adjacencies and balance the visual weight of your offset dining table accordingly. Placing your appropriately scaled lighting directly over the centre of your table will also trick the eye and create a relationship that will make the offset table make sense.

Choosing Between Circular, Oval, and Rectangular Tables

Each shape serves its purpose and setting. Circular and oval tables, free of sharp corners, are ideal for families with young children and offer a safer environment. They’re also excellent if you’re trying to squeeze in a few extra diners using a banquette. Tables with a central post are excellent for accommodating extra seats during large gatherings without the discomfort of knees bumping table legs.

BANQUETTES OR UPHOLSTERED CHAIRS

Banquettes bring a unique blend of functionality and charm, particularly in less formal settings like breakfast nooks. They’re the perfect dining room furniture selection for adding extra seating and are especially kid-friendly. In dining rooms, a well-placed banquette can allow for additional guests in a pinch, highlighting the importance of selecting durable, high rub count, and wipeable upholstery.

In the examples included in this blog, we have a wire-frame banquette that is a little less formal and allows the eye to pass through and enjoy the beautiful park view behind. The other banquette example is a more formal style that has a completely upholstered back for an enclosed feeling that is incredibly cozy.

Upholstered chairs are a must in a formal dining room, and if space allows, they’re lovely in breakfast nooks. They’re comfortable and supportive and encourage your guests to sit and enjoy connecting with you. Even when selecting a banquette, upholstered chairs are a lovely addition to enjoy your morning coffee.

One last consideration for seating is colour and pattern coordination. If your dining area has a sightline to other seating, like bar stools or sofas, select colours and patterns that coordinate with them.

DINING AREA LIGHTING CONSIDERATIONS

Pot Lights or Statement Lighting?

When there are adjacencies that are in the sightline of your dining area, you need to consider them in your furnishing and lighting layout. In the examples we’ve shown in this blog, the breakfast nooks and open-concept areas have a mix of pot lights and chandeliers. In one example, there is no chandelier over the breakfast nook. The reason we did not add a chandelier is that the dome lights over the island were so strong and directly related to the other end of the great room that we did not want anything to take away from that story.

In the example with a kitchen island above, the island lights are not imposing. The breakfast nook needed a more robust piece to relate to the island fixtures in shape. The third example shows that there were many pot lights in the kitchen but no island or other statement lighting. The nook needed a soft, strong piece that coordinated with the rest of the lighting in the house.

How to determine where the light should be placed in the ceiling

Simply put, your lighting should hang directly over the centre of the table. If your lighting electrical box is not where you’d like it, hiring a certified electrician to change its location is relatively inexpensive. If you’re in a rental or cannot change the box location for any reason, you can add a longer chain and swag it over to the desired location.

Where Should Your Chandelier Be Placed?

Simply put, your lighting should hang directly over the centre of the table. If your lighting electrical box is not where you’d like it, hiring a certified electrician to change its location is relatively inexpensive. If you’re in a rental or cannot change the box location for any reason, you can add a longer chain and swag it over to the desired location.

How to Create Mood Lighting & Layered Lighting

Dimmers! Always install dimmers on your lights. This is also fairly inexpensive for a certified electrician to help you with. However, to layer lighting without changing electrical, add lamps to your buffet table or battery-operated table lamps. We always love candles as well.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There’s so much more we could share with you. We’ve only scraped the surface. As we wrap up our exploration of dining room furniture, remember that the key to a beautiful, functional dining space lies in thoughtful planning, attention to detail, and a touch of creativity. Stay tuned for our next discussion on living room furniture layouts, where we’ll delve into creating inviting and practical living spaces.

 

When you’re ready to get started, let’s talk!