Whether it’s a stand-alone room or part of an open-plan zone, the dining area is a place that should be practical, functional and beautiful. A place for family dinners, homework and dinner parties, your dining room has the potential to be one of the most frequented rooms in your home if you get the design right. Dining rooms can be tricky spaces to get right. There needs to be a balance between function and form. But don’t worry, Boca do Lobo is here to give you the best tips!
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Decide the function of your dining room
If you are starting totally from scratch with your dining room, ask yourself what is the room’s main function. Is it just for dinner parties or will you be eating casual family meals in there too? How many people will you need to seat? Do you want to create an intimate space or something formal and elegant?
Essentially you need to decide who, how, and when the space will be used and let those decisions dictate the furniture you choose, but also the colour scheme and the layout. Take inspiration by saving images you like, doing a mood board or taking inspiration from magazines.
Nº 11 Chair
Get the right floor for your dining room
Flooring in a dining room is a key element to make sure it functions well. A dining room floor should not only look lovely, but it also needs to work hard too, these rooms are high-traffic spaces and are susceptible to spills and stains too.
Metamorphosis Dining Table
Plan plenty of lighting
Plan your dining room lighting early on in the design process because it’s a really important element as it will set the tone for the whole room. You want to make sure there’s enough light so your guests don’t appear to be sitting in a cave, but you still want it to feel glowy and ambient.
Newton Suspension Lamp
Pick the colour scheme
Moving on from the move practical aspects of designing a dining room to the more fun and creative decisions. First up the colour. The dining room colour scheme you choose will come down to the overall feel you want to create in the room. For example, dark and sumptuous or bright and airy?
These decisions will come down to how often you use the room and at what time of day. If you often use it for breakfasts and lunches, going super dark might be a bit intense, maybe stick with neutrals or experiment with blues and greens. If it’s a place for entertaining for an evening, go deep and rich.
Soleil Chair
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Add a pattern with a wallpaper
Dining room wallpaper is a really easy way to bring pattern, colour, and texture into a space. We love the fresh, bright colours and prints going on in this space, providing our point that dining rooms are not the rooms to play it safe, have fun with it and choose unexpected patterns.
Empire Round Dining Table
Find the perfect dining room furniture
It’s going to be the key part of designing a dining room – the dining room table and chairs. It’s not a decision to make quickly. You have to really think about what size and shape will suit your space best.
Hera Suspension Lamp
Choose the perfect layout
It might appear that you are quite limited when it comes to dining room layouts – table in the center, chairs around the edge… Well yes, this setup makes sense but it’s not the only option.
Fortuna Round Dining Table
Bring in practical and beautiful storage pieces
It can be useful to have some extra surface space for drinks and decor and a place to store glassware. Console tables or sideboards also make great storage in a dining room and provide a spot for adding extra lighting and bringing in some decor into a room where most furniture has to be kept clear of clutter. Make sure these pieces are higher than the dining table so your eye is drawn to the display and not interrupted by the table.
Lapiaz Sideboard
Add an area rug
Rugs are a lovely way to ground a dining table and add some texture, pattern and colour. The key is to get the right size so your dining table and all the chairs sit comfortably on top but there’s still some floor to be seen.
Put your personality into it
Then it’s just about decor. Bringing your personal style into the space. Gallery walls bring so much personality to a room, and yet they take up zero floor space and you can switch them as often as you like to change the vibe.
Plan out the layout on the floor before you start hanging anything, and don’t just stick to a uniform grid, mix and match frames and hang them slightly more randomly for a more informal, on-trend look.