If your dining room doesn’t reflect your aesthetic, it’s possible that it’s looking a bit too dated, and rethinking your furniture scheme and window dressings will make a major change. After all, designers stress that the wrong furniture and drapery styles can really set the tone of a room—in a negative way.
Here, three pros chime in with the design decisions they’d suggest you avoid making in order to create a dining space that’s current and full of style.
Heavy, Dark Furniture Sets
While designers love peppering classic wooden pieces throughout a space, they’re not so eager to decorate a dining room using solely heavy, dark furniture.
“Matching dining sets with bulky, dark wood tables and ornate chairs can make a space feel overly formal and dated,” Meg Spellman, the founder of Meg Spellman Interiors, says.
If you own or inherited such a set that you’re not willing to part with completely, consider splitting up the pieces so that they’re put to use in various rooms to break things up a bit. For example, maybe you can use the chairs in your dining room, but place the buffet table in your living room, where it can double as a TV stand.
Only Using Antiques
As you move away from heavy, dark furniture sets, Spellman suggests outfitting your dining room with a mixture of both vintage and contemporary finds to create a more curated, mixed look, which she says is in vogue today. After all, you want your space to feel welcoming and in style, not like it’s a relic.
Andrea Schumacher, the founder of Andrea Schumacher Interiors, agrees that dining rooms that only contain antique furniture and decor are automatically going to look dated. Pick your favorite older pieces, but make them a bit more playful, she suggests.
“Pair a family heirloom table with modern chairs, or take those old Chippendale chairs, lacquer them in a fun color, and reupholster them in a fabulous fabric alongside an antique table,” Schumacher says. “Instant personality!”
Overly Formal Window Treatments
When dressing your dining room windows, it’s again important to keep contemporary styles in mind and not look too far back into the past, Spellman notes.
Skip any dated dressings like swags, valances, or heavy drapes—all of which Spellman says feel fussy and out of place in modern dining rooms.
What should you install instead? The answer is to keep it clean and simple. Roman shades (you can even DIY them!) and linen panels are both fair game, Spellman shares, but truthfully, she explains, window treatments in this space are not a requirement.
“Even no window treatments at all can help the space feel fresher and inviting,” the designer says.
Matching Dining Sets
Avoiding dark furniture sets is particularly key to creating a current dining space, but matching furniture sets as a whole are also seen as dated, no matter their style, Lauren Saab, the founder of Saab Studios, says.
These, she says, tend to feel staged and one-dimensional. Like Spellman, the designer agrees that it’s best to mix materials and eras for a stylish look. The goal, she says, is to create rooms that evolve, and not repeat themselves.
“The tension between elements is what gives a space its dimension and distinction,” Saab says.
China Cabinets
The china cabinet had its time in the sun decades ago, but is no longer an integral component of the dining room, Schumacher explains. That said, the designer is all for finding creative ways to display your china that don’t involve keeping pretty plates and bowls behind closed doors.
“I love the idea of using beautiful china as art—hanging plates on the wall or displaying them in a colorfully painted bookshelf feels so much fresher,” Schumacher says.