Whether you are treating your dining room as a separate room or as a large dining area, placing the furniture can make a huge difference in how your guests feel at your home. This can be a challenging task. However, you can make the entire process simple by focusing on comfort and ease. Your family members and guests will enjoy the new look.
- Check your space
- Measure your room and draw a sketch of your room on a grid paper, using a scale. For instance, 1 square to 1 foot. Keep a check on the dimensions and placement of doors and windows. This planning plays an important role due to the relative inflexibility of the furniture placement in the dining room; sooner or later the chairs must be drawn up to the table, and this outline rules the room.
- Check the relation between the seating arrangement you planned and the location of your doors and windows. If your family eats in the dining room frequently, you must avoid glare in the eyes of your guests. Even if you are among those who use the dining room for entertainment, this can be a great factor in arranging the seating arrangement for a weekend or Sunday brunch.
- Walkthrough the procedure of serving a meal from the kitchen to the dining room. This will help you to decide where you should put the storage cabinets so that you don’t have to move around the chairs for reaching the end of the table while serving food.
2. Place the furniture in the right way
- Place the bulkiest and hardest-to-fit furniture first. It can be anything from the teak sideboard to your grandmother’s Welsh dresser. While this may violate the classic image of a table centred under a centred lighting fixture, but it will help you to use your remaining floor space in a more efficient manner.
- Make sure you keep the table in such a place where your hosts and guests can access it easily. This means, placing it in such a way that people can walk around it easily, preventing guests from colliding with the host while serving the food.
- Instead of moving the table under the light, if possible, try moving a light fixture. This allows you to use your space most efficiently and will be obviously less costly than purchasing new furniture. Mount a hanging fixture between 3 and 5 feet over the table surface, therefore offering enough light for the occupants and table but avoids glare in the guests’ eyes. Make use of wall sconces as this will provide even lighting all throughout the room. Make use of candle-flame or low-wattage bulbs for softening the light and consider keeping one or more mirrors in your dining area for adding the reflected light.
- Put empty chairs against the walls, in the corners or in another room. In such a scenario, guests will not be confused if they don’t find an empty chair next to them, and the meal will seem fuller without empty places at the table. If you are using all your chairs daily, consider using some folding chairs to offer an extra company. Until required, keep those chairs out of sight.