DESIGN IDEAS
Dining areas should have a special ambience, whether for cosy lunches or elegant dinner parties
CREATE JOY
A dining space should bring joy to any mealtime, believes Kit Kemp, creative director of Firmdale Hotels. ‘In the apartment I designed in a house in Chelsea, the chairs, covered in a mix of ticking stripes by Robert Kime and Penny Morrison, are each distinguished by different coloured handle tops,’ says Kit. Above the table is a Buoy pendant by Akiko Hirai and Claire Norcross and on the wall is a painting by Andrew Johnston. ‘Don’t be too tempted to have every book standing up on a shelf,’ she adds. Horizontal stacks or leaning books diagonally adds more character. ‘For a touch of fun, a plaster lion’s head peeks out from the bookcase.’
FEATURE ARABELLA YOUENS
SOUND DECISION
Something that’s not always considered when planning a dining room within a large space is acoustics. One of the fastest ways to undermine visual atmosphere is if sound bounces uncomfortably off lots of flat surfaces rendering conversations difficult. A clever way to address this is by using texture. Curtains are a time-honoured technique, but another trick is to use fabric walling. In this London project by Studio Peake, founder Sarah Peake opted for a linen wallpaper in terracotta. ‘We wanted to instil a warm, cosy atmosphere, and the weave and tone of the linen combines with the soft furnishings and hard finishes to create an understated but luxuriously comfortable room,’ she says.
OLD AND NEW
Balancing modern and traditional elements in a manner which feels natural rather than forced is often a challenge but not in the hands of Henriette von Stockhausen, creative director of VSP Interiors. This country house dining room uses saturated colour and modern art with dramatic results. ‘This is a rather cool dining room we recently finished,’ says Henriette. ‘We asked a team of specialist painters to use a soft dragged glaze on the panelling and pick out the edges in distressed gilding. It adds definition to the panels. Then we brought in beautiful leather chairs by Soane Britain, lots of antiques and modern art resulting in a space that will hopefully play host to many fun evenings for our clients.’
SEPARATE WAYS
While there are many arguments for having a kitchen/dining arrangement that will become the central point in a house, there is something special about retreating from the energy and distractions of a kitchen into a separate civilised dining area. Here, antique dealer and designer Max Rollitt has restored the dining room of a 17th-century farmhouse using an oak refectory table as the centrepiece. The room captures the essence of classic country style. On the Jacobean-style panelling hangs a portrait of a Maltese knight. The chairs have been covered in a French 18th-
