It’s time to put your holiday dining ideas on the table
Go for comfort and creativity when hosting a holiday meal that’ll score style points, too
Dining rooms often serve doubleduty as homework headquarters, libraries or home offices. With the approach of the holidays — and entertaining — it’s time to put ideas on the table to combine function and style, and encourage guests to linger over a great meal.
It’s about the chairs: We notice dramatic dining tables and beautiful tableware. But if the goal is to have long, lovely meals, comfortable chairs are vital.
High-end custom dining chairs can be expensive — prices can easily climb above $800 per chair even before you choose upholstery fabric. But they are made for comfort and meant to last a lifetime.
Some homeowners opt for less expensive chairs from online sites and customize them with better fabrics. But for comfort, try out dining chairs in person. Visit stores and showrooms and ask yourself: Is someone going to want to sit here for three or four hours and enjoy a great meal in my home?
Comfort means different things to different people, of course.
“My least favourite thing is sitting down in a metal dining chair,” says interior designer Jaclyn Joslin, founder of the Coveted Home retail store in Kansas City, Mo. “It’s always cold and hard.”
You can also get creative with seating. Joslin has an upholstered loveseat along one side of her dining ta- ble, and says it’s perfect for the holidays. “You can pile the kids on there.”
And consider adding seating for other purposes — such as reading. Adding a few larger, upholstered chairs will give a dining room a second identity.
Creative risks: Dining rooms that aren’t used every day can be the perfect spot to take decorating risks.
“Frequently, clients will say OK to wallpaper in dining rooms,” says Los Angeles interior designer Betsy Burnham. “They’re afraid to wallpaper a space they’re in all the time because what if they get tired of it? What if it’s overwhelming?”
It’s also a great room for incorporating family heirlooms, says interior designer Abbe Fenimore, founder of Studio Ten 25 in Dallas. If you have an inherited sideboard or hutch, what better place to display it than where you’ll have relatives over for family dinners? These pieces are also great for displaying inherited serving dishes and other keepsakes.
Creative storage can make your dining room more beautiful and offer space for things like table linens and holiday serving pieces. Joslin recommends including pieces that offer a mix of glass-fronted display space and closed storage.
Loveliest lighting: “Everybody wants to look good around a dining table, so you want the right amount of ambient light,” designer Burnham says.
Ideally, you can mix lighting embedded in the ceiling with a hanging fixture above the table and then sconces and perhaps a table lamp if there’s room.
“If there’s the opportunity for a sideboard,” she says, adding a mirror and two lamps will create beautiful, warm light in any dining room.
“People like it dim,” Burnham says, “but not so dim that they can’t see their plate.”
To rug or not to rug: “If you have kids who are out of the house, it’s a luxury. Get a gorgeous rug,” says Burnham.
But if you’re focusing your decorating budget on other items, know that nicely polished floors can anchor a dining room on their own.
But if you use your dining room more for work or relaxing than for eating — and if you don’t have little kids eating messy food at your dining table — then a rug carries little risk and lots of potential reward. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency