Arranging the Dining Room

Eating is a very social activity.  A room dedicated solely to dining is rare, but there are many advantages to having a separate dining room:  It offers a place to relax and enjoy  meal and company away from cooking smell and dirty dishes; also, the dining room give extra space to store many items not in use daily.  Whether you plan to renovate or convert an existing room into a dining room, do your research and design your dining room carefully to get the most out of your space.  Here are tips that may help you make better use of your dining room.

• Consider buying an expanding dining room table.  By adding table leaves, you can accommodate as many people as necessary.  Allow a minimum of 32 inches between the edge of your dining room table and the nearest wall or another piece of furniture.  This gives enough room for people to move the chair back. 

• Install built-in sideboard.  A combination of china cabinets, open shelves, and drawers can house a range of accessories for the table. 

• Fine china can be displayed in a glass-front china cabinet as a decorative showpiece.  Objects that are displayed in a dining room should be appropriate to the general style of the room:  If you have a formal dining room, keep everyday dishes, flatware, holiday dinnerware, serving utensils, and linen concealed in cabinets, drawers, or sideboard. 

• Install a dimmer switch in the dining room.  Very bright light in the dining room may make guests feel uncomfortable.  With a dimmer switch, you can control the lighting for each occasion with a turn of a knob. 

• Use more than one light source in the dining room.  Install dimmer for each of the light fixture and layering with various lighting for elegant ambience.  Chandelier or hanging light fixture should be approximately 30 inches above your dining room table and make sure that the hanging light fixture is 6 inches to 12 inches smaller than the narrowest side of the table for visual balance.  Most dining room needs about 200-400 overall wattage for adequate illumination.    

• Consider built-in hot plate to keep food warm and save unnecessary trips back and forth to the kitchen. 

• If you use floor area rug in the dining room, be sure the rug is large enough to fit beneath the chair that’s push back from the table and then add 6 more inches to the dimension of the rug.  The chair legs shouldn’t fall off the rug when people are seated at the table or when the chair is pulled out.  To be sure of the size, another formula is to measure the length and width of the table and add at least 4 feet to each.

Holidays, anniversaries or other events are often celebrated around a meal and considering the importance of food and friends have in our lives, it’s not surprising that many areas in homes have evolved in entertaining.  Create a proper dining room in your home and expect friends and family to gravitate toward it.  There’s a recipe for success.