A Dining Room That Is Not a Dining Set

Most dining rooms go wrong in the shop, before anything is delivered. You walk in for a table, there is a table with six matching chairs standing next to it, and buying all of it in one go is so much easier than buying it in six goes that you do it. A year later the room looks like the showroom floor it came from.

The rooms I like best are the ones that clearly did not happen in an afternoon. A table with a bit of age on it, chairs that were chosen because they are comfortable rather than because they came with the table, and one light doing the actual work.

Buy the table second-hand

This is where I would put the time rather than the money. An old extending table in solid wood costs less than a new one in veneer, it is already the colour it is going to be, and the marks on it are somebody else’s rather than yours, which somehow makes the first one you add hurt a lot less.

Two things to check before you fall in love with one. Measure the leaf: the ones that store inside the table are worth twice the ones you have to keep in a cupboard, because a leaf in a cupboard never comes out. And sit at it. Older tables often have an apron, the wooden rail under the top, and if it sits low your knees find it before your plate does.

Let the chairs disagree with it

Chairs are the one thing here I would buy new, and I would not try to match them to the table. A dark moulded shell against warm old wood looks deliberate. Six identical chairs in the same wood as the table looks like a set, and a set is the thing we are trying to get away from.

You also do not need six of the same. Four around the table and two lighter ones that live somewhere else in the room and get carried over is more useful, and it is how the room actually gets used.

Hang the light lower than feels right

The most common mistake in a dining room, and the easiest to fix. A pendant over a table wants to hang around 70 to 80cm above the tabletop. That feels far too low when you are standing under it holding the drill, and completely right the moment anyone sits down.

Low light over the table and one warm lamp somewhere else in the room is the whole recipe. If the ceiling light is the only thing on, everyone at the table looks tired, including the food.

The sideboard is doing more than storage

A long, low cupboard along one wall gives you somewhere to put down a dish, a place for a lamp, and somewhere to hide everything a dining room accumulates. It is also what stops the room reading as a table sitting on its own in a space.

Lower than the table, if you can find one. It keeps the eye moving along the room rather than stacking everything at the same height.