Small dining room ideas
Whether you have an open plan kitchen with a small adjoining dining area or a tiny dedicated room we've got ideas for furniture, wallpaper and paint colours to make the most of your dining space. Well chosen art can enliven and add interest to the tiniest of rooms and dining rooms are not exception. Why not consider using benches instead of a motley assortment of chairs? They seat more, feel more convivial and look neater crammed into a small space. Extending tables are perfect for transforming a space on evenings you want to entertain and cabinets and dressers can cut down on clutter. Whatever your budget go forth and dine in style...
Martin Morrell1/13A small drop-leaf table around which he can cram six people is central to the otherwise bare dining room in Remy Renzullo's charming Chelsea cottage, where the rough plaster walls lend a simple, austere aesthetic to the space.
Martin Morrell2/13Walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘India Yellow’ bring warmth to this space in Jeremy Langmead and Simon Rayner's Cumbrian farmhouse, which doubles as a library. Antique country chairs found in Cumbria, Hereford and Suffolk partner a table with a suzani from Susan Deliss as a tablecloth.
Christopher Horwood3/13The deep banquette which wraps around this dining table was made by Nick Plant, and is upholstered in Howe at 36 Bourne Street's 'Elise Stripe'. The prints on the wall are part of the owners' collection. Explore more of this London house.
Mark Anthony Fox4/13This narrow space between the kitchen and sitting room in the Spitalfields house of the owners of Jamb has become an elegant dining room. It is separated from the sitting room by a half-glazed “clerk’s screen”. A pair of Jamb's ‘Apsley’ dish lights lead the eye towards the kitchen. The ‘Cruxton’ table, with its Arts & Crafts form and brass top, was developed especially for this house; a pair of late 19th-century benches provide seating. A glass dome by Jamb houses tribal sticks, while wall storage comes in the form of display cabinets from the British Museum.
Mark Anthony Fox5/13This deeply luxurious London pied-à-terre with interiors by Veere Grenney has a small dining area overlooking the garden, where a banquette provides comfortable seating. The table is bespoke, and set of Regency dining chairs bought from James McWhirter antiques were recovered with a pleated skirt by VGA. The antique Rise and Fall hanging lamp by Gaetano Scolari for Stilnovo, circa 1960, was purchased in Paris. The pochoirs on the wall are part of a complete folio of Picasso's work printed by Daniel Jacomet in the 1960s.
Chris Horwood6/13When furniture designer James Shaw bought an empty plot in covetable east London, it required an unusual amount of ingenuity to turn it into a home, and he was obliged to dig down into the ground to create an ‘invisible’ house. The compact lower floor fits a small kitchen, seating area and this dining table set against a wall of bookshelves.
Fitting two people at the small end, and four or five at the other, Shaw designed the ‘pear-shaped’ table to maximise the efficacy of the space. The ‘B4’ stacking dining chairs are by Börge Lindau for Bla Station and the lampshade from John Lewis.
Michael Sinclair7/13In this West London Victorian house refreshed by Lucy Hammond Giles, a ‘Batsford’ dish light from Jamb hangs above the Max Rollitt ‘Tumnus’ table and Vico Magistretti chairs. The walls and woodwork are in Farrow & Ball’s ‘India Yellow’. The unique vaulted ceiling has been hand-painted with an ivy-wrapped latticework motif by the decorative specialist Magdalena Gordon, of Atma Decorative Arts, it sits above four crescent-shaped slivers of verre églomisé.
Simon Bergström8/13“The quickest and best tip I can give for small spaces is to try to make rooms within rooms," says Sebastian Bergström, who has an open plan living-dining space in his tiny Stockholm flat. “In my living room I have a dining area and a sort of library and an area for the TV. And within each of those mini-rooms, there are other spaces I think of as self-contained. It makes everything feel more homely and cosy. My other tip is to be brave; you can usually fit more in a room than you think."
Christopher Horwood9/13In the dining room of this colourful Chelsea townhouse, the walls are painted in Little Greene's ‘Sage Green’. The woven corner chair is from Quindry Antiques. Over the fireplace, a painting by Katharine Edwards, sourced from Cricket Fine Art hangs.
Paul Massey10/13A corner of the kitchen in this eighteenth-century house in Bath has been made into a dining area. Interior designer Nicola Harding suggested applying blue paint to the Howe ‘Cross Stretcher Table’ and ‘Camembert Chair’, which were white in the Gilpins’ previous house. An antique Windsor chair from Robin Cox stands beside the window, which overlooks the terraced back garden designed by Nicola. Plaster plaques by self-styled ‘master plaster caster’ Peter Hone are hung above the chimneypiece. A selection of his pieces are sold through Pentreath & Hall, including the similar ‘Summer Fruits Dresden Plaque’ pictured here. Handmade in London,the plaque measures 42 x 25cm and costs £120.
Simon Upton11/13'Why do we buy poor-quality, mass-produced furniture? It is wrong in every way,' laments interior designer Patrick Williams of Berdoulat Design, who has used salvaged finds and traditional techniques to imaginatively restore his Victorian flat in east London in a sympathetic manner. In the dining area he replaced clumsy window architraves with a narrow pencil bead, painting and staining them to match the plaster. The pews, used as seating around the dining table, are from a salvage yard, while the shutters are from Petersfield and were found online.
Tom Mannion12/13The dining room of this Cornish rectory, decorated by Max Rollitt, is panelled in a typical, late-eighteenth-century manner. This is matched with appropriate furniture - an English Regency table with mahogany chairs, c. 1765, with carved and pierced back splats. The chair seats are covered in antique silk bourette.
Simon Brown13/13The tiny dining room in Caroline Holdaway's cottage in the Cotswolds is home to a collection of rustic antique furniture and art pottery. A skylight is edged with shelving for elegant storage.
