DINING ROOM DECORATING

Blue and Brown Dining Room

   

Designer Jonathan Berger created a soft palette of light blue, brown, and touches of pink in this Brooklyn brownstone dining room. Featured in July 2009 issue.

Small Space with Big Ideas

Designed by Kim Fiscus, this tiny dining room, once an office area, is practical  "we can hose off the chairs," says Fiscus  with a touch of drama. The 18th-century gilt starburst is six feet in diameter and probably from an Italian church. "I bought six, and kept the best one."

Dine-in Library

Miles Redd designed the ebonized wood and sterling bookshelf, where a colorblock painting by Leora Armstrong hangs. When they're alone, the owners of this Manhattan apartmen  dine at this carved flip-top game table from Agostino Antiques.

Informal Dining Room

Designer and homeowner Kerry Delrose didn't want a formal dining room, so he skirted the table and uses it for buffets.

Living Room and Dining Room in One

Designed by Andrew Halliday and David Greer, the living and dining areas are combined in this 550-square-foot room, typical of new condo construction. The curtains are one of the few patterned fabrics in the apartment. Dining chairs by Dualoy covered in perforated leather.

Blue-and-White Dining Room

This Palm Beach dining room designed by Gary McBournie is all about entertaining. Everything is white, including the sideboard and vintage Chinese Chippendale chairs, which make a crisp contrast to custom-glazed duck-egg-blue walls.

Coastal-Inspired Dining Room

"The white chairs and coral chandelier make a big mahogany table feel lighter than it is," says designer Ashley Whittaker. "The contrasts make it work. I consider that a universal rule in decorating."

French-Country Dining Room

Designed by Cathy Kincaid, this dining room takes a cue from an old French farmhouse, with a beautiful French Directoire chandelier as the focal point.

Clean and Crisp Dining Room

Designed by Allison Caccoma, this beautiful, traditional dining room creates a dramatic contrast thanks to the creamy white moldings juxtaposed against the Prussian blue Venetian plaster walls.

Michael Taylor's Style

The dining room designed by Michael Taylor features wallpaper that is a copy of an 18th-century chinoiserie original. Taylor had the baseboards faux-grained and waxed to look like pale oak.

Inspired by Albert Hadley

Hand-painted 19th-century wallpaper mounted as a screen wraps around Carol Curtis's Atlanta dining area, which she designed with her daughter, Sarah Norwood. The zebra rug is a nod to Albert Hadley one of Curtis and Norwood's favorite designers.

Red Accents

Because her house in Bridgehampton, New York, "meanders around corners and up and down steps," design consultant Ellen O'Neill couldn't make sense of the flow. So she painted everything Benjamin Moore's Linen White: "It's the blank-canvas approach." A vintage English road sign gives the dining room a focal point. Red chairs from Design Within Reach. Curtain fabric by Les Indiennes.

A Dining Room with a Grand Ceiling

Designed by Fern Santini, this romantic dining room's beautiful ceiling is based on an Addison Mizner design.

Symmetrical Dining Room

This Greenwich, CT, dining room designed by Markham Roberts makes a strong case for symmetry: The table and Gustavian chandelier are centered directly on the fireplace, and a pair of English Regency-style cabinets with Japanese lacquered panels flank it.

European Dining Room

This dining room, designed by Paolo Moschino, feels European, with walls painted in a custom white botanical chinoiserie pattern and the ceiling dominated by a 19th-century French bronze and crystal chandelier.

All-American Dining Room

Designed by Myra Hoefer Design, this dining room features side chairs by Oly slipcovered in Grey Watkins Indian cotton strip and a table by Astier de Villatte.

Modern Mix

Designed by Chad Eisner, this dining room features a glass and nickel-plated metal table designed by Eisner himself. The pendant light is from Reborn Antiques.

Deep Chocolate Dining Room

To create intimacy in the dining room, designer Ned Marshall painted the tall, imposing walls Bittersweet Chocolate by Benjamin Moore: "The brown is also nice with the blue and white and the gilt, and it's lovely in candlelight."

Aspen Dining Room with a Modern Flair

Designed by Ann Wolf, this dining room in an Aspen home features an iron chandelier from Dennis & Leen, which is evidence of Wolf's affinity for organic elements and shapes.

Dark Dining Room

Designed by Barbara Westbook and Kim Winkler, this dining room features the client's mismatched French Régence-style chairs which were stripped, stained, and covered in dark-toned linen to harmonize with the walls and trim.

A Dining Room Inspired by the Beach

Chris Barrett designed the 1950s-style dining room table and chairs; she caned the chairs and made a see-through table base to give the furniture a "beachy" feel.

Bright and Beachy Dining Room

Designed by Leslie Klotz, this Hamptons dining room features seahorses from a garden antiques store and Louis XVI–style dining chairs covered in a jaunty shade of chartreuse leather, and backed in a coral and white print.

A Traditional Blue-and-White Dining Room

Cool blue mixed with warm wood tones, white trim, and brass light fixtures create a clean elegance in this dining room designed by Alex Papachristidis.

Just a Touch of Color

To balance the diamond pattern on the walls, Allison Caccoma used softer lines and curves in this breakfast room's chandelier and chairs. The floral colors of the fabric, a Robert Kime suzani, provides a burst of color against the all-white kitchen and helps the space feel like an extension of the garden.

A Converted Dining Room

The dining room of designer Abby Rizor's 1920s Florida house was originally a porch, and it still has the same airy freshness. With its earthy palette and plenteous layering of textures — stucco walls, wicker chairs, burlap tablecloth — the room has a natural ease that soothes the spirit. And can't you just feel the breeze coming through the French doors and billowing those linen curtains?

Blue Dining Room

This dining room, designed by Eric Lysdahl, features dark blue walls and a dark blue ceiling, which allows the white elements to pop while creating a rich, velvety background for gilded picture and mirror frames. The room feels fresh in daylight and intimate at night.

Bright and Modern Dining Room

"Mid-century modernism resonates for me," says designer Jonathan Atler, who paired Warren Platner's 1966 dining table from Design Within Reach with his own Chinese Chippendale chairs. The chandelier is from the 1970s.

Mix of Modern and Traditional

Designed by JJeffrey Bilhuber, this dining room features Louis XIII-style chairs, which add sumptuousness to the dining room. He chose the stained bamboo table by Dominic Gasparoly for its strong, quiet form. The Calder-inspired mobile is from Mondo Cane.