When clients begin to make Dining room furniture choices, I invariably tell them to start with the table.  I’ve always enjoyed dining at round tables at friends’ houses.  There’s something so gracious about being in a circle. Conversation can be more general than when sitting at a rectangular table.  But we all have our space restrictions and so it’s also important to keep your selections flexible.  When you are free to move and arrange your furniture so that it works for six, eight, or fifty, you’ll find our life is so simplified.  While a 72-inch-round glass table top may accentuate the gorgeous colors of your dhurrie area rug or a sensuous granite slab on dramatic marble pedestals give your space a modern look, these surfaces weigh a ton and will limit you as you move from one situation to another.  Your room has to have furniture that adapts.

If you already have furniture you wish to use—for example, a French country hutch—or need to work around built-ins such as window seats or corner cupboards, they will naturally dictate your other choices.  Place the furniture you have so that it fits around your built-ins and work from there.

As I have cautioned elsewhere try to stay away from matching dining room sets. Feel free to blend your wooden pieces. Your chairs should be lightweight, graceful, and easily carried from room to room. For larger parties, you can supplement that dining room chairs with others of complementary size and proportion from your living room.  Nothing, however, looks stiffer than a dining room cluttered up with too many extra chairs of the same design. If you’re lucky enough to have a table that expands to seat twelve, and there are twelve matching chairs along the walls, dancing class—style, store them elsewhere—or better yet, move them into other rooms where they, too, may be enjoyed daily.

The dining room’s major message is that of a life lived between these four walls.  Hospitality truly does begin at home. The more you alone can use and enjoy this room, the more pleasure you will bring to any others you ask to join you there. It really doesn’t matter in the end how many chairs you have. You can always pull up an extra one, even if it’s a folding chair. It doesn’t matter how many people you can seat; you can always move things around and set up a card table.  We all want to feel welcome.  We all want to break bread among ourselves and enjoy each other’s company in an attractive setting. So light a few candles, make a toast, and celebrate together.

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