who said dining had anything to do with eating?

food? not my jam. i engage it for cultural reasons and to stay alive. (…am i allowed to say that?)

the cliche goes that for family life, a dining space is the center of the home.  meals are had, homework is done, cookies are made… important things that don’t much exist in my twenty-something DINKdom.

so when i look at a dining space, i throw function to the wind.  can it fit all the serving dishes?  will it seat enough people?  does it resist the staining power of spaghetti sauce?  why am i asking questions that are putting me to sleep?

from my perspective, the aesthetic value of a dining area is twofold (and now i’m putting you to sleep… stay with me):

1. simplicity.  all you need here is something for your body to sit on and something for your plate to sit on.  everything else is bonus.  if we reject the idea of buying a dining set – that’s right, toss it on the ground and crush it under your toe like a cigarette butt – we can achieve a marriage of contrast and balance unlike anywhere else in the home.

darryl carter / elle decor / nov 2012

this is monochromatic for my taste but pretty damn near perfect nonetheless. the table is heavy, the chairs are light.  the table has clean lines, the chairs are embellished. the table is in mute tones, the chairs have a hit of brightness.  contrast and balance.

“ok, nerd.  why,” you might ask, “do they look good in the space if they’re so different?”  i certainly wondered this after feeling an initial burst of visceral pleasure when laying eyes on the photo in a magazine.  fire up a few brain cells, and you realize that a) table goes seamlessly with the flooring, and b) the warm muted wood of the chairs ties loosely to the table and ties strongly to the brass framed painting.

when you’re standing in a crowded furniture store with these pieces next to each other and a thousand other shapes/colors in your peripheral vision causing sensory overload, you will think NOOO!  NO LIKE!

that’s the moment to set aside your biases and remember the principles.  balance + contrast.  instinct + brain cells.

i want to sit at this table with my slowpoured coffee and stare out into the ocean.

stay tuned to the next post for more on dining space lurrve…