Dining Room

The dining room has spent twenty years being declared dead and is quietly having a very good decade. It turns out people do want a room whose only purpose is sitting down together, even if it doubles as a desk five days a week.

Getting one right is mostly about proportion. The table should leave real clearance behind pulled-out chairs; the pendant should hang lower than instinct suggests; the rug, if there is one, should be big enough that back chair legs stay on it. Beyond that it is about making a room that is worth lingering in after the plates are cleared — which usually means dimmable light, something soft on at least one surface, and chairs you can sit in for three hours.