Dining Room Reveal

Food is kind of a big deal in our Haus

One of my fondest memories growing up was family dinners. Every night we sat and ate dinner together. Mum mostly cooked, my sister would sit with ear phones in (she didn’t want to hear anyone eating ), my brother would barely eat awaiting the peanut butter sandwich he’d get later, the three of us would throw our peas under the table and Dad would threaten elocution school every time we put an elbow on the table or spoke with our mouths full.

Some of our best conversations and arguments happened around that table and just thinking about the memories brings a smile to my face. That is why it was so important for me to get the Dining Room just right for our new family home. I wanted our kids to feel all the love and crazy that I had growing up. So here are our tips on creating a loving and memorable Dining Room.

Jus xx

p.s Kids, in all seriousness, if I see a single pea on our floor, it will be straight to elocution school for you! 😉

Dining Room Tips

Colour
I love a bit of colour in a Dining Room, whether it be a bold feature wall or large artwork/s. We had the beautiful Annie Everingham create our custom piece. It is fun, earthy, pretty, coastal, deserty, fancy, colourful and ginormous, everything we could ever hope for and more.
A white base is always nice too, our white walls are Taubmans Cotton Sheets.

Lighting
A hero pendant like ours, from the lovely Lauren at Wanderlust Lighting compliments our timber elements in the space perfectly, it is also a great centrepiece over a grand spread of food for a special occasion.
It’s nice to have a variety of lights where possible. We paired our pendant with down lights suitable for a raked ceiling and led strip lighting from Beacon Lighting in our exterior garden bed .
After dinner, once the kids are in bed, we like to turn the down lights off and just have the pendant or garden lights on, to slow the mood and unwind from the day (and maybe crack a red wine or two 🙌).
I also like a big antique chandelier in a dining room, or a cluster of lights over a dining table or even track lighting for an ultra modern apartment. Either way - lighting is important. Beacon Lighting do a fantastic Lighting Design Service if you need help.

Windows
Natural light creates such a sense of space and sparkle in a Dining Room. Windows let in the sun and moonshine and transform the space from day to night. They tell your house story. Our low level window is from Great Lakes Windows. We threw in some cacti to add a little something more too, maybe that’s our ‘crazy’ coming through 😊. But don’t be disheartened if you don’t have the option for a window, a feature mirror can work wonders as well!

Styling
Treat your dining table like a coffee table; keep it simple, add a little height, texture, foliage. Style with some of your favourite things. We have some vases and a timber stump from Mode Hire and some beautiful blooms from Blooms on Darby. A candle would be lovely here too.
We tend to style very simply to let our build shine. Our textured half dowel Porta Timber wall does a lot of our styling for us.

Furniture
Last but not least, your furniture. Choose furniture that will suit your space and meet your needs! I LOVE a round dining table. They’re soft and social, but it just wasn’t suitable for our house. We wanted an extendable table to be versatile for both entertaining and everyday living. We also needed a table that would help the transition from the Dining Room to the Kitchen flow. Our table and chairs are from Freedom Furniture. Comfortable chairs are helpful too!
I often get asked about matching timber colours ie our NHS Blackbutt timber floors to our timber furniture and accessories, don’t freak out about this too much friends, it is totally ok to have a mixture of similar timbers, who needs matchy matchy anyway ❤

I hope that was helpful! Please let me know if there is anything else you want to see from us.

Jus and Luke xx
Orton Building