While eating in your kitchen does feel better in some ways, being close to the smells of cooking and the warmth of the stove for instance, there is a lot to be said about making the dining room the center of your family dining. There is more room in the dining room, and everyone gets to eat together.
That’s a different kind of warmth – a place that lends atmosphere to convivial joy – eating, talking, laughing, enjoying one another’s company. With a room that’s intended for such togetherness, what kind of dining room decorating ideas would create an environment that would best support it.
The simplest thing you could do would be to decorate with candlesticks placed wherever they will fit (and not set anything on fire). That does lend a certain amount of warm elegance. But there is a lot more you could do too accessorizing your dining room for the exact feel that you are looking for. Families tend to feel well taken care of in a formally decorated dining room. A silver tea service placed strategically on a patterned doily on the dining table can do a lot for the kind of happily pretentious pleasure families sometimes like to have together. Sometimes, a beautiful metal punch bowl could bring a little old world charm in, too.
The idea with these dining room decorating ideas is to bring in a sense of special character to the dining area. Most people never pay attention to how turning your dining into a festive occasion makes the experience a lot more agreeable with children and grown-ups alike. Would you consider having a mural painted on a wall in the dining room? You could have an art student from a local art college come in and do it for you for little pay. Show the art student the kind of tablecloths, the china and the furniture that you plan to have in the room, and she’ll probably find a color scheme to paint that will go along with all of this.
When decorating the room, let’s not forget that using food as a decoration can really put people in the mind of partaking of a meal. Try setting platters of fruit around where they could look good. A platter bountiful with fruit placed next to your tea service should look very attractive. And of course, when considering dining room decorating ideas, let’s not overlook the contribution that the right kind of lighting can bring in. Certainly, a beautifully shaded lamp or two casting a warm glow next to the table should be very pretty. If you could afford it, a chandelier with tiny bulbs right above the dining table should light everything wonderfully, only not too brightly. If you could put in a large mirror on one wall, that would lend a slightly unexpected expansiveness to the dining room that should really make for a dramatic effect.