There's no room here for any furniture but the table and chairs.
It's a challenge to decorate a small dining room. You might be able to fit a buffet/china cabinet or a serving cart in the room, but then there's no room to pull out the chairs or move behind a chair if someone is sitting at the table. Learn some tips to help change your small dining room space into your new favorite room in the house.
Instructions
1. Take stock before you start decorating. Take everything out of the buffet and china cabinet. This is a good time to go through all of your china and crystal and decide what to keep, what to give away and what to sell. Chances are there are many items -- think wedding gifts -- that you have never used and probably won't ever use. Keep only the things that you truly love and want to use or display.
2. Reduce clutter. The dining room isn't the place mail, school papers, magazines and newspapers, or craft projects. A small room will look even smaller with lots of clutter, so make this an everyday priority.
3. Go light on the furniture. Of course you'll keep the table and chairs. If there's room enough to pull out the chairs comfortably, you might be able to keep the buffet in the room. Find another spot in the house for other furniture in the dining room that is simply taking up space.
4. Try a round table, especially if your dining room is a true square. A round table provides an even amount of space between the chairs and the other furniture, making the space appear larger. Choose armless chairs.
5. Paint the walls a lighter shade of the color you like if you love dark, rich colors in a . Dark colors tend to make a space appear smaller. Paint the chair rails or even the whole bottom half of the walls white. This adds a custom look and brightens up the room.
6. Use mirrors on the walls to make the room look larger. Have custom mirrors added to the trim work, or treat a group six or eight mirrors as one piece of wall art.
7. Let in natural sunlight, which can help make a space look and feel larger. Install blinds that you can pull up during the day, and/or hang sheers so sunlight can enter the room during the day without having to adjust anything.
Tags: dining room, buffet china, , china cabinet, make space