DIVINE DINING
Dining rooms are having a moment A dining room can become both a social centre for your household, and a perfect canvas for some creative interior design.
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.
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.
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 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.
● 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. ■ For more ideas and inspiration to bring out the best in your home, ask a Resene Colour Expert free online, www.resene.co.nz/ colourexpert or visit your local Resene Colorshop.