How to put a dining room together

The colors of your dining furniture need to work as one whole with the rest of the room. Color has a strong effect on mood. In places built for fun and relaxation, lively, varied color helps people unwind, which is why bars and karaoke lounges tend to look bright and ever-changing. Deep black, on the other hand, reads as serious and formal, which is why it works in offices and meeting rooms.

Color

The dining room is where the family gathers to eat together. In principle, dining furniture should lean on colors that relax people and encourage appetite: orange, warm wood tones, classic walnut, off-white and light gray. But the dining area sits inside the larger home, so its colors also have to get along with the screens, ceiling, pendant lights and floor tiles around it.

A home is a private space. It should not be as loud as a bar, which comes across as careless, and it should not be as dark and formal as an office. A practical rule: keep the dining furniture plus its surroundings to no more than three main colors, and give the three roughly equal weight.

Size

The size of the furniture has to follow the size of the space, the same way a shorter person buys smaller clothes and a taller person buys larger ones. There is no standard dining room; different floor plans and decorating styles produce very different dining areas.

In a large dining room, choose substantial, generously sized furniture. A big dining room rarely needs its furniture moved, and heavier pieces are comfortable, look right and avoid the top-heavy, empty feeling a big room gets with small furniture.

In a small dining room, go for lightweight, compact pieces in a modern, minimal style. They keep the room looking neat and orderly, make the most of the floor area and are easy to move. When fewer people are eating, some pieces can be folded or tucked away to open up the space.

Style

Dining furniture should match the decorating style of the home, whether that is modern minimal, natural, traditional, contemporary, postmodern, eclectic, European, classic Chinese or anything else. Each type of dining furniture carries the culture of a particular region, era and people. Whether the dining furniture and the home's style tell the same story says a lot about the owner's taste, interests and sense of design.