Are you actually using your dining room to its full potential right now? Most people aren’t, so don’t worry if you fall into that category – it’s easy to assume that your dining room is just a place where you eat (and perhaps not even every day). However, the fact is that your dining room can be so much more, and it really should be a place where you can make some wonderful memories and have some great times with friends and family because it’s the ideal place for entertaining on any scale you might want.

The key is to transform your dining room so it looks and feels the part and so you – and everyone else – wants to spend more time in there. The dining room can often be a neglected part of the house that people only venture into once in a while, but it can be so much more and so much better with a little thought and a few changes (some big and some small). So with all that in mind, let’s take a look at how to truly transform your dining room to ensure it’s all you could want it to be. Read on to find out more.

How Much Space?

Before you can make any changes, it’s a good idea to look at how much space you’ve got – the last thing you’ll want is to get furniture that doesn’t fit or that’s too small and leaves you with gaps to fill up (which in turn can make the dining room much more cluttered, which is something you’ll really want to avoid).

Measure the room and draw a scale drawing of it, then copy that blank drawing a few times so you can try some different layouts and make sure you get the design just right. If you do that, you’ll know precisely which items of furniture you can fit in, and where everything’s going to go. Not only does that make actually making changes a lot easier, but it also reduces the chances of making a mistake, so it’s a good way to start to save you time, money, and stress later on.

When you’re planning, you’ll need to think of the size and shape of your dining room, but also about how you can use that space. If you often have people over for dinner, you might need more seating than if you only intend to use the room for your immediate family – that could dictate whether or not you buy separate dining chairs or you opt for benches instead, for example. The more you know about the room and how it’s going to be used, the eaiser it will be to plan it all out without too much stress and effort.

Choose The Right Furniture

The dining table is always going to be the centrepiece of any dining room, no matter what size it is or how you want to use the room, so that’s the first piece of furniture to think about – everything else can come afterwards and be chosen to match the style of your table.

You’ll want a table that fits your style and also fits your space, which is why that scale drawing is ideal. A large dining table is just right if you do a lot of entertaining, and as long as there’s enough room to move around it, it’s a great idea – the bigger the better in a lot of cases. But it’s not just the size that’s important; you’ll need to get the look right as well. If you want a modern look, go for a sleek, glass-topped table with metallic accents, for example, and if you want a rustic vibe, you’ll need a wooden table with a distressed finish – you can see what we’re saying here; pick a style that works with the rest of your home and that you fall in love with, and your dining room will be utterly transformed.

If you’re going to have a lovely dining table, you’ll need great seating to go with it, and here’s where you can go really wild if you want – it depends on your preferences and what you want your dining room to look for. You could, for example, have matching chairs that all look the same for a uniform and neat look, but you could also choose mismatching chairs if you’d prefer to have a more eclectic feel to the room. Or how about benches? They can be a fantastically versatile option, and they might be just the right thing if you’ve got a small space to deal with.

Get The Lighting Right

Lighting plays a fantastically important role in getting your dining room exactly how you want it and transforming it so it’s a great space to spend time in, so here’s another thing you’ll want to consider carefully before you can make a final decision. Once again, it’s going to depend on the size of the room, so that’s definitely something to think about, plus you’ll want to make sure the light you choose doesn’t just look right, but actually does its job and makes the room functional too. However, a dining room won’t generally need a massively bright light because that’s going to make things uncomfortable when it comes to sitting down for a nice meal – there has to be plenty of balance in the mix.

If you’ve got the space and you want a statement piece, you can’t go wrong with a chandelier or a pendant light that hangs over the table, but if the room is smaller, a simpler fitting is better, and you might even want to use lamps instead of a large central light (or you could have both, which would give you a lot of choice and make the room versatile so you can use it for work or hobbies or homework as well as eating, for example).

In fact, layering your lighting like this can work wonders for the room and can really transform everything for the better. You could have wall sconces which look brilliant and can do a good job when it comes to lighting up the room as well, and you can always have candles on the table if that’s going to work (and be safe – if you’ve got small children or pets around, it might not be wise, or you might need to use fake candles instead of real ones). Then there’s dimmer switches which mean you can have that one larger lighting fixture but you can control how bright it is, making it perfect for all kinds of activities. As you can see, thinking about your lighting carefully is much more important than you might initially think – it’s definitely not something to rush if you want to be pleased with the final result of your dining room transformation.

Colour Scheme

Something we haven’t yet mentioned but that’s very important and sure to come up when you’re choosing your furniture, lighting, and anything else you might want in the room is the colour scheme. Whatever colour you choose is going to set the tone for the rest of the room and everything in it, so it’s well worth taking your time over choosing the right colour to ensure the room feels good once it’s decorated.

Neutral colours can often be a good bet, with colours like beige, grey, cream, and white creating a great palette to work from. The fact that they’re also nice and calming is definitely a bonus as well! You can use the neutral colour of your choice as the base of the room and then add splashes of a bolder colour like navy blue, emerald, dark red, and so on, to spice things up and make it interesting. As long as whatever colour you choose goes with your furniture (or the other way around), you can create the most wonderful dining room and enjoy it hugely as a result.