Decorating & Design
From The Archives: These Hardworking Dining Rooms Do It All
Published on November 27, 2024
It’s not just a spot to host dinner parties and gather the family — a dining room can also serve as an art gallery, home office, display space and storage for all of the tableware that makes sharing a meal together so special.
Scroll down to discover 20+ hardworking dining rooms from the H&H archives!
In her lakehouse, Lynda Reeves’s table settings are mixed elements from many lives. Williams Sonoma painted pottery accent plates sit on black glazed dinner plates over woven placemats.“In the dining room, it was the modern country furniture made by skilled American craftsmen in the Hudson Valley that inspired me,” she says. “Fortunately, we have our own amazing makers at Coolican & Co., here in Toronto, who were able to make our fabulous Claro walnut dining table. Michel, who is himself a furniture maker, travelled to his favorite source in Massachusetts to buy our slab.”
“Our sideboard is a drop-leaf Georgian Irish wake table from our Toronto house,” says Lynda. The amber chandeliers are vintage from Stanley Wagman Antiques in Toronto and add a hit of grandeur to the room. “The armoire is a French country piece I’ve had in every house I’ve lived in. Here, it’s the essential dishes closet,” says Lynda.
In Jaime Polan Zimmerman’s Victorian house, open shelving in the dining area displays books and vessels. The custom dining table has a durable Taj Mahal quartzite top, while a banquette is the perfect place for her and her family to eat or tackle school projects and homework.
In this renovated dining room that seats 16, Collective Studio was tasked with designing a space where their clients’ could host large gatherings, shabbat dinners and Jewish holiday meals. “Eventually, our clients want to take over from their parents in hosting holidays. It’s not something people in their 30s usually think about. We needed to reconfigure the floor plan to make the main floor a functional entertaining space,” says designer Alana Firestone.
Designer Susan Drover is drawn to spare, uncluttered spaces accented with natural materials and handmade pieces. Her Scandinavian-inspired dining room is an ode to Nordic style.
Sarah Richardson opened up the great room ceiling to expose the rafters in her Georgian Bay cottage. A trio of woven pendants helps draw the eye up, and eight sets of double doors flood the space with natural light. “I love how bright and breezy it feels. The cottage is our summer clubhouse, a place where family can be together,” says Sarah.
In this stately country house, playful gingham seat cushions knock the stuffiness out of the dining room’s antique ladderback chairs and timeworn table. “We live in a beach town, but now we prefer to entertain at home,” says the homeowner.
The dining room of this Princess Margaret Showhome is like walking into an art gallery. The wallpaper has graphic punch and the statement pendant adds a sculptural element.
This traditional Georgian-style dining room is like walking into a storybook with its stormy cloud motif wallpaper, opulent chandelier, and decorative ceiling molding.
Interesting materials and unusual applications can be found throughout this sprawling 5,000-square-foot Kitchener, Ontario home that was inspired by European travels. When the family longs for the many art galleries of Europe, all they have to do is go to the dining room where statement art and a wire-netted chandelier reads as sculpture.
Beyond bringing an Art Deco vibe to this vibrant dining room, a new stained glass window obscures a brick wall view outside. Inside, all of the furniture in this West-end Toronto home was carefully considered to ensure it was quirky and architecturally cool — yet durable.
Floor-to-ceiling drapes create a cozy and ethereal feel in this open-concept dining room. According to designer Aly Velji, the wooden texture of the dining room table and the linen drapery work together to create a cocooning feeling.
We love when homes embrace their original features, like this renovated Edwardian home that masterfully preserved the original fireplace in the dining room. New wood floors in a chevron pattern are an ode to the past, and complement the fireplace and bay windows.
Ten blue velvet chairs and chartreuse accent chairs bring the wow-factor and color to this open-concept black and white dining room in designer and antique collector Scott Yetman‘s Quebec chateau.
Have a tight dining room? This version becomes even more hardworking with a built-in banquette that includes two shelves for extra display. Designer Allison Willson transformed the bland wall into a work of art with a monochromatic landscape mural that adds dimension.
Not only does this sideboard nestle in perfectly to this niche, the built-ins help frame a stunning floral artwork. Painting out the back of the shelves injects life and color when displaying white serveware, while banks of drawers can be used to stash placemats and linens.
If you’re lucky, your dining room will include a handsome stone fireplace like this Toronto home. Creating a built-in with niches allows for custom options like a long shelf (instead of an abbreviated mantel) which serves as extra display. A gallery wall of family photos gives the gathering place a personal touch. We also love the window seat that makes it a place to read and relax.
Fashion pro Janice Meredith’s dining room serves as a source of inspiration: notes written by her four children are affixed to the Ingo Maurer chandelier. Janice loves to use the shelves as a spot to stage rotating vignettes of her favorite items.
The dramatic box molding in this fresh Vancouver home’s dining room beautifully integrates built-in storage with a mix of glass doors and drawers with cup pulls that look like a piece of furniture. Painting the paneling and built-in the same color creates a seamless effect.
Jackie Kai Ellis uses the dining table in her quaint Paris apartment as a workspace, but it’s the gorgeous antique plate-warming unit in the corner (which no longer works, but serves as a display for a flock of ceramic parrots) that really captured our imagination. This space also doubles as bike storage.