Dining rooms the low down

Morning, hope you guys had a good weekend, mine not so good not sure why nothing really fell into place for some reason. Coupled with a dull aching head the whole weekend and a visit to supposedly the best place in London to eat brunch and have coffee (WRONG) it was one of those weekends that I'm kind of glad is over.  Plus I like Monday's never used to until I started my own biz but Monday's I like. The week lies ahead all plotted and planned and then by the day if not the hour it changes and transforms, elongates and often times morphs into something completely different by the time it’s Friday. Anyways lets get down to business I thought we might talk about dining rooms which is a hard one since some people have dining rooms that are open plan and spill into other areas, some people's kitchen counters double duty as dining rooms and some people have entirely separate rooms that they entertain in. I would say it doesn't really matter what you have, I happen to have an open plan affair and decided rather than giving over a whole room to a dining room I would incorporate our dining space into the lower ground floor with the kitchen and TV nook. The point with dining rooms which I've mentioned one zillion times (apologises) is because the table takes up the largest amount of space you really don't want it to be the main focal point (otherwise your room will read a little dull). You want other stuff going on also, a bar, cool painting, and some kind of shelving - in other words stuff! The hardest part in pulling a dining room together for me at least is the chair conundrum. Do you match, do you mix, what’s the deal! I tend to mix but in pairs otherwise for me at least it feels a little too crazy and more than anything I don't want the space to feel like a hodge podge I want it to feel beautiful. Finding dining chairs is altogether another epic but if you want to create some interest try mixing modern with rustic or traditional it creates a truly interesting dialogue. With the holidays fast approaching dining rooms will be taking centre stage so make sure the lighting is right. Anything that hangs above a table needs to be dimmable when the light outside fades the light inside also needs to fade, smatter t-lights around the room on window sills, shelves etc. etc. I go a little crazy and suspend hanging t-lights in all the trees  and plonk t-lights in jam jars for all the little tables outside so everything looks magical. Below two dining spaces mine plus another super cool one, have a good Monday. [caption id="attachment_3939" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Photography Rebecca Reid[/caption]