While it's true that things like durability and size factor into your dining table decisions, let's be honest; what you really want is something that looks good. You want something that emphasizes your own personal style and represents your personal aesthetic. You want something that's beautiful.
While it's true that things like durability and size factor into your dining table decisions,
let's be honest; what you really want is something that looks good. You want something that emphasizes your own personal style and represents your personal aesthetic. You want something that's beautiful.
The tricky part of this is context, which is basically your home. You need to look at your house and the style that you've created in your home. What you need to keep in mind is how a dining furniture set looks in the display room or in an online gallery isn't necessarily how it's going to look at home.
If you have a house that's furnished in a completely contemporary style, then buying a formal dining table & chairs might look jarringly out of place. This isn't something that, if you're not into style and interior design, you'll be able to put your finger on, but you'll have this nagging feeling that it simply doesn't look right.
Now, if you already have a design style in mind, this is going to be pretty easy. You will already have a trained eye and a good mental picture of what you want to happen. But for the rest of us, here's a little introduction to the various styles and how to use them to get the best looking dining room sets.
One thing to keep in mind is that even if you don't have a particular style for your house, you should still pick a style for your dining room. This gives you a base for evaluating the individual sets or even the individual pieces like dining tables and dining chairs.
Picking a style can also be helpful for creating a style for your house. Dining tables & chairs can serve as the nucleus for your style, and you can build the rest of your decor around it. Especially if you're furnishing a house for the first time, this can be an excellent way to start.
Broadly speaking, there are three different kinds of styles for dining furniture. As you might imagine, these are some fairly broad categories. Since there's only these three basic styles and there are thousands of different kinds of ding furniture, so there are lots of possible subcategories, but knowing the big three is going to be enough for most people outside of an interior design class.
Formal
If I say dining room set, there's a good chance that the formal style is what is going to pop into your head. This is a large wooden dining table, usually in a dark color, with several chairs and, most often, a dinette or sideboard.
This style has it's origins in the dining rooms that were, as the name implies, used for formal dinners. It's classic looks, and it works best in a large home with an overall classic style.
Modern
This style is more, well, modern looking. While wood is the standard construction material, you can also find glass dining tables here and other more unique pieces. The modern style tends to be smaller and more intimate than the formal dining room, and is more what you find people eating breakfast and lunch over.
Modern styles can probably work in any house, but the style works best with a more open floor plan. It doesn't require nearly as much space, usually, as the formal sets, and tends to seat fewer people.
Contemporary
If you're looking for a unique and interesting style, contemporary is it. This probably the most open category and it's kind of a catch all for everything that doesn't fall under the other two. If you're looking for a table that looks like it came out of a fifties diner, all chrome and kitsch, then contemporary is the way to go.
The key to making contemporary work is that you should probably have a contemporary style overall. If you have a house that's decorated in a classic style then a contemporary dining room is probably going to be too jarring.
Eclectic
Now, having said all that, there is a fourth style, which is basically no particular style. Eclectic is where you take pieces from the other styles and mix them together to get something that is uniquely your own. The key here is that you need to have a well developed sense of style unless you want to look like you chose your dining sets by throwing darts at a board.
