As you work on all the ways to make your apartment better, don’t forget about the dining room. It’s where you’ll enjoy meals together with your roommates or guests, and you can make lots of memories here. A modern approach to the dining area of your apartment can make it more useful for dinner parties, nightly meals, and even getting some work done at the table. Here are seven of our favorite ways to make the dining room feel more modern and complete.
1 – Class It up
If you like to host guests and show off your modern charm, you’ll want to have a formal layout for your dining room. Depending on how much space you have, that may mean a larger table with seating for plenty of hungry guests. If you want to conserve room on a daily basis, you can go with an extendable table. Extend it and add leaves when you need them, then bring it back down to a smaller size when you want your place to feel more spacious. This gives you flexibility when it comes to the layout of your place.
Choose modern furniture to fit in with the rest of your decorating scheme. Add bookshelves or other storage solutions to make the space more functional for when you want to get some work done. Make the aesthetic feel more diverse by including different types of chairs at the heads of the table compared to at the sides. Finish it with some modern lighting fixtures that will add to the look while also improving visibility throughout the room.
2 – Go With the Flow
If you and your guests will be walking through the dining room a lot, keep the room with an open feel that makes it easy to pass through. A round table can help with this, as it gives plenty of room to walk around it in the corners of the room. Center your table under the lighting fixture if your dining room has one, or center it on an area rug. If you’re using a rug to center your table, it’s important to pick the right size. The back legs of your chairs shouldn’t be hanging off the rug, because this can make pulling them out and pushing them in a pain. The chairs definitely shouldn’t be hanging from the rug while people are seated because that will make your guests feel uneven or off balance.
Chairs can feel cramped around a round table, so make sure you give them plenty of space and remember that less is more in some cases. If you still have a lot of space along the walls, you have some options for how to fill the room. A buffet or credenza can give you places to store things and set food during dinners. Alternatively, you can add another place to sit, like a bench or a small sofa. If you enjoy a good cocktail from time to time, you may want to add a bar cart in part of the room. Floor lamps in the corners of the room can help complete the look and add additional lighting.
3 – A Room Within a Room
This option is especially popular in today’s apartments since some more classic dining room setups don’t feel especially modern. To achieve a dining space within a larger room, you’ll have to start with an apartment that offers a large living area. Once you have that, you can decide how you want to break the room up.
Street apartment residents will break the large space into a living room and a dining room. For the living area, you can define a section with your couches, chairs, and television facing away from the dining section. Your dining room table will be more of an all-purpose space. It works for meals, or you can sit there on your laptop. If space doesn’t feel sectioned off well enough, add some end tables or area rugs.
4 – Be High Tech
Modern life is defined in part by our technology. To bring this into your dining room, consider what kinds of electronics you’d like to have handy while you’re eating or relaxing at the table. Dinner music will never go out of style, so a Bluetooth speaker system can come in handy here. This is an excellent opportunity to throw on some tunes that match the style of the meal you’re eating.
You can also add a screen or two if you and your guests like to watch something while you eat. This allows you to use your dining room as a sort of sports bar or catch up on the morning news while you eat breakfast. Finally, the power outlets in the room should be easily accessible. If your guests join you for a long dinner and stick around for conversation afterward, people may need to charge their phones. It’ll also come in handy if you want to charge your laptop while you work at the table.
5 – Use Mismatched Furniture
Cohesive dining room sets are classic, but modern homes often rely on a more eclectic collection of different furniture pieces. You can save money on complete sets by shopping at thrift shops or consignment stores to get your chairs one at a time. If you go this route, it’s important to make sure that your chairs are all generally the same height. If they’re not, they may not fit under the table appropriately, and it would feel awkward if all your guests were sitting at different levels. You can tie all the different chairs into a cohesive look by making sure they all have a shared color or material type.
6 – Introduce Geometric Prints
Geometric prints are common in modern decorating, and there are plenty of options for adding them to your dining room setup:
- The rug
- Plates
- Placemats
- Tablecloth
- Lighting fixtures
- Contemporary art pieces
7 – Choose Your Table Carefully
The table is arguably the most important piece of your dining room setup. It’s the center of attention and the focal point around which everyone gathers. If your table doesn’t have a modern look about it, the rest of your room won’t feel very modern either. Look for modern shapes that are interesting and use bold lines, and shy away from ornate engravings that could feel more antiquey.
You can also employ modern materials to drive your stylistic preferences home. The right glass tabletop can feel very chic, or you could even take it in the opposite direction with trendy reclaimed wood. Modern or composite pieces can feel either traditional or modern depending on their shape, so you have lots of options.
Apartments in Phoenix AZ
At Heers Management, we are delighted to offer spacious Phoenix apartments that give you plenty of room for your dream dining room setup. Our friendly staff will happily walk you through a few of your options so you can start to get inspired, and we’ll fill you in on a few of the best modern ideas we’ve seen. Contact us today to learn more or set up a showing.