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Decorating a Small Dining Room

Decorating a small dining room… how do you do it? That’s a good question.

Well, the answer is quite simple if you’re willing to go over an easy four-step process that will help you with decorating a small dining room from start to finish.

So, what are the steps involved?

Let’s go over them now…

• Step One: Find the perfect dining table for your small space.
• Step Two: Decide what additional furniture to add.
• Step Three: Decide how you would like to arrange your furniture.
• Step Four: Add floor and wall accents to complete the look.

In all honesty, most dining rooms are decorated pretty simplistically. If you were to look at a good selection of them, you’d notice that like all rooms, even the most extravagant dining rooms only have a few specific pieces of furniture in them.

But what distinguishes your dining room from others is that it’s just smaller. So, you have to be a bit choosier in what you pick.

Decorating a Small Dining Room: Step One – Find the Perfect Dining Table for Your Small Space

Finding the perfect space saving dining table may sound pretty easy but there are a few things to consider when you’re thinking about decorating a small living room with a dining table.

First, you should realize there are two types of small spaces…

• The kind that can afford to display a piece of furniture temporarily
• and the kind that can afford to display furniture permanently

That alone will make all of the difference in what you pick.

If your situation calls for temporary display and you want a dining table but don’t have much space for one, then the situation will automatically require that you to look for folding dining tables.

They simply give you the best of both worlds. You get a dining room table but you also get a piece of furniture that won’t take up too much space when not in use.

But let’s say your situation is more permanent than that. Well then, you can be a bit choosier about your choices.

The first thing you’ll need to consider is that there are two types of small dining tables…

• “Width” dining tables
• and “length” dining tables

A “width” dining table is a square or round dining table that is equal in width and length, or in the case of a round table, consistent in diameter.

And as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, a “length” table is a dining table that is longer in length than it is in width.

For instance, a breakfast bar is a “length” table.

Dependent upon how your dining room is shaped, one might save you more space than another.

Between the two, you’ll notice that round and square-shaped dining tables go almost anywhere: from the center of a room to the wall. However, rectangular tables like breakfast bars work really well along a wall, thereby offering you more area space to walk in.

Decorating a Small Dining Room:
Step Two – Decide What Additional Furniture to Add

As I said earlier, most dining rooms tend to rely on a small amount of furniture.

The dining table is usually the center of attention and the additional furniture is there to accentuate the dining table.

Once the dining table is in place, most dining rooms tend to rely on one or more of the following furniture to emphasize the dining table and play up the look and feel of your dining room…

• a (curio) china cabinet, curio console, hutch, or sideboard
• a fireplace
• an artificial tree and/or floral arrangements

…all of which will take up a valuable amount of space.

Although most small dining rooms won’t have trouble fitting a reasonable sized curio, fireplace or a sideboard, there are reasonable alternatives for these large pieces of furniture for a small dining room.

You just have to think outside the box a little.

Consider decorating a small dining room with slightly smaller and more affordable alternatives instead…

• A tiered shelf or wall shelf can replace a (curio) china cabinet
• A (tall, tiered or ladder) bookcase can replace a hutch
• A tiered plant stand, console table or bookseller table can replace a curio console
• A sofa table or accent table can replace a sideboard.
• A chandelier candle holder, candle holder candelabra or similar extravagant candle holder can replace a fireplace.
• You can use floral arrangements instead of an artificial tree but alternatives to artificial trees aren’t really necessary. Most often you’ll find artificial trees don’t take up much space and accent a dining room so well that choosing another solution isn’t as effective.

After, you’ve got an idea on what you would like to get, another important part of decorating a small dining room is how you plan to arrange your furniture.

Where you place things is just as important as what you get.

Decorating a Small Dining Room:
Step Three – Decide How to Arrange Your Furniture

Truthfully, this is actually a flexible step because it may benefit you to decide on where to place things before you purchase anything. Or you might find it more beneficial to decide as you buy one piece of furniture at a time.

It’s really up to you.

The most important part of this step is just making certain you have a clear enough idea on how you can experiment with things.

So, to help you out I’d like to point you in the direction of my discussion titled Arranging Furniture in a Room which may give you a few good ideas on how to best place your furniture in your dining room so that you can save as much space as possible.

Decorating a Small Dining Room:
Step Four – Add Floor and Wall Accents to Complete the Look

You may find this step is also flexible when you’re decorating a small dining room.

Often enough it’s easier to find the perfect wall and floor accents once you’ve finished decorating a small dining room with all of the appropriate furniture. But that all depends on whether or you prefer going by specific guidelines to create a color scheme or just want to go with good old fashion gut instinct.

Neither is right or wrong. It’s just what you prefer in the end.

But in any case it still boils down to the same thing.

And that is…

What makes rugs and wall accents special is they are like yellow highlighters.

They point the way and help draw the eyes to the intended location or the appropriate direction by making certain things jump out at you.

With those accents, it’s a matter of connecting the dots by choosing a rug or picture that matches a color up with another color already in the room.

Or simply adding a new color that will stand out and draw attention to the rest of the dining room all by itself.

No matter what you decide to go with, when you’re ready to add the finishing touch if you keep the simple thought in mind that your rug accents and wall accents are yellow highlighters that will draw attention to a specific piece of furniture or to the entire room, it could help you bring your living room to life in a way you never thought possible.