Dining Room Décor
Shop dining room décor from Mikolia, covering the table and the surfaces around it: porcelain tableware, floral and ceramic vases, ginger jars, artificial flowers, ornaments and wall art.
A dining room is the one space in a home that switches between two entirely different states. Most of the time it sits empty, seen in passing rather than used. Then, a few times a month, it becomes the room everyone is in. Decorating it well means making it look considered when nobody is sitting down, and making the table itself work when they are.
Porcelain Tableware
Tableware is where a dining room earns its keep. The tableware collection covers dinner plates, side plates, serving dishes, lidded casserole dishes, soup tureens and ladles across three ranges.
The Amalfi range is lemon print porcelain with a Mediterranean feel, suited to summer lunches and relaxed family meals. Camellia is embossed white porcelain, quieter and more formal. Kensington adds a gold trim to white porcelain, which makes it the natural choice for occasions, weddings and dinners where the table is the event.
Table Centrepieces
The most common centrepiece mistake is height. Anything tall enough to block a sightline across the table forces guests to lean around it, and it will usually be moved before the meal starts. Keep centrepieces low, and save the height for the sideboard.
A low ceramic flower vase filled with a simple arrangement works better than a tall one. Candle holders grouped at slightly different heights down the centre of the table create the same sense of occasion without the obstruction, and a run of tealights along a long table does more than a single large arrangement in the middle.
Floral and Ceramic Vases
Sculptural floral vases with hand-applied flowers work particularly well in a dining room, because they hold a sideboard or a table beautifully even when there is nothing in them. That matters more here than in other rooms: a dining table is empty most of the week, and a vase that only looks right when filled leaves the room looking unfinished between meals.
Fill them with artificial flowers for a permanent arrangement, or keep them empty and let the form carry the surface.
Ginger Jars
Ginger jars and temple jars belong on the sideboard rather than the table. The lid makes them display pieces first, and the blue and white designs in particular echo the patterns of traditional dinnerware, which is why they have sat in dining rooms for three centuries.
A pair flanking a mirror above a sideboard is the classic arrangement, and a graduated group of three at different heights works just as well on a longer surface.
Ornaments and Wall Art
Glazed ceramic ornaments, particularly the fruit designs, are a natural fit for a dining room, where the subject matter belongs and the low, rounded shapes suit a sideboard group without competing with a centrepiece.
On the wall, a square or landscape panel of framed wall art above a sideboard anchors the room in a way that nothing on the table can. A dining room usually has one clear wall, and filling it well does more for the room than anything else on this page.
Styling a Sideboard
A sideboard is seen straight on and needs composition rather than coverage. Concentrate weight at one end with something tall, a ginger jar, a large vase, or wall art above, and place a lower group at the other end. Leave genuine space in the middle: the empty stretch is what makes both ends look intentional.
Something in the arrangement should reach roughly a third of the way up the wall space above the surface, which is where a piece of wall art or a taller jar does the work. Anchor the low end with something wide rather than tall.
Setting the Table for an Occasion
A full set of matching tableware is the simplest way to make a table look deliberate, but mixing across ranges works too, provided the palette stays tight. Kensington's gold trim sits comfortably beside Camellia's embossed white, since both are white porcelain and only the detail differs.
Layer a side plate over a dinner plate rather than setting them side by side, keep the centre line clear for low arrangements and candles, and resist filling every gap. A table with space on it reads as generous; a crowded one reads as fussy.
Everyday and Occasion
The most useful dining rooms work both ways. A permanent arrangement, a floral vase on the sideboard, a piece of wall art, a pair of ginger jars, keeps the room looking finished on ordinary days. Then the table itself changes for an occasion: tableware laid, candles lit, a low centrepiece added.
Buying for both states rather than only for dinner parties is what stops a dining room from looking like a room waiting to be used.
Open Plan Dining Spaces
In an open plan room, the dining area needs to relate to the living room rather than compete with it. Repeating one finish across both zones, gold detailing, the same ceramic tones, a matching wood, ties the space together without matching everything.
Wall art above a dining sideboard and wall art above a sofa in the same room should share a palette even if the designs differ, since both are read at once from most angles.
More at Mikolia
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