The dining room—it’s the room where we come together, feast, and make a whole lot of memories. It’s no wonder nailing the proper dining room layout is a major design priority. To get the wheels turning, we recently enlisted the in-demand Bay Area designer, Chloe Warner, of Redmond Aldrich Design, to dream up some uber-stylish dining room ideas for four common dining room scenarios. Below, Chloe tackles everything from the grand dining room to the itty-bitty kitchen nook, and shares her best dining room layout ideas for making each one work beautifully, so you can get shopping already.
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The Large Formal Dining Room
“It’s such a luxury to have this kind of scale, but most modern families aren’t entertaining in a grand way enough of the time to make if feel worthwhile. Our solution is to make it into a beautiful library most of the time, and add a more intimate seating area in the window, something where a couple of people at a time can enjoy breakfast or a meal.”
The Dining Room With Lots of Doors
“It can be so tricky to ground a table when there are openings on every wall, so here we decided to commit to being on the fireplace axis, and relying on strong wallpaper and color to define the space.”
The Open Concept Dining Area
“This elegant loft apartment is completely open, and sometimes it can be difficult to place a formal seating arrangement when you don’t have walls. There are still architectural clues, though – we centered the dining table on the window to capitalize on the amazing views, and it also kept the seating close to the kitchen which makes the most sense for eating. To make sure the space didn’t feel overly kitchen-y we skipped upper cabinets, deciding instead to do a graphic onyx backsplash.”
The Small Breakfast Nook
“This small eat-in kitchen is possible because most of the cooking functions are on one side of the room, and we bumped out the wall to create a nook for a cozy table. Special features include drawer storage beneath the banquette for art supplies, and a pendant fixture that brings focus to the seating. ”
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Photos Courtesy of Chloe Warner
