How Can I Decorate My Small Dining Room to Serve Multiple Functions?

Q. I don't know if you can help me or not, but our small dining room has a fireplace in the corner.  I would like to get some ideas on how to turn this room into not only an eating area, but also a reading/leisure area in front of the fireplace.  Thank you for any help. (from Susan W.)

A. Many thanks for emailing us! Having a dining room with a corner fireplace and being able to also use it for lounging sounds like the perfect interior.

You obviously feel comfortable in the space, and we feel strongly that you should put a lot of effort in getting it to function well for you and your family.

Unfortunately, owing to its size, there will need to be some compromising. In other words, you might not have as many dining chairs if the space were to be used solely as a dining area, or it might not be as comfortable for a huge crowd to use for lounging. The following picture shows a very elegant small dining room area with a fireplace and a mix of chairs that can be rearranged for lounging, conversation, reading, and dining.

Without seeing your floor plan and knowing more about how many people dine together regularly in the space, we recommend the following:

1. The dining table should be a round table with extensions. That will allow you to flex up or down for different numbers of diners. Here are some round dining table resources:

Avetex Furniture has a variety of round and oval contemporary dining tables with extensions (see photo above). You can choose the finish to blend in best with your decor: cherry, wenge, or natural.

Berry Design is a UK firm that will make simple oak round and oval dining room tables to the specific dimensions of your living space. The above photo shows an ideal dining grouping in front of a fireplace, but note the larger chair against the wall -- we'll talk about that later!

Calligaris has their Atelier Round Dining Table in both light cherry and wenge wood finishes. The photo above shows their simple and elegant table with an extension added, to create a larger oval.

The photo above shows the elegant and green Knu Dining Table #1, made from Forest Stewardship Council certified wood and sporting 6 eco-friendly veneer options.

Baker Furniture has this elegant Noir Dining Table in their Laura Kirar Collection. We liked the above photo showing a more conversational arrangement at this dining table with an eclectic mix of chair and accessories to deemphasize its use as a dining table when you would like to focus on reading, conversation, homework, playing a board game, or doing your taxes.

2. There should be two large chairs that you can use both for dining and lounging. Wing chairs are comfortable for both lounging and dining. The table should be placed against a wall, with the two chairs at the table, opposite each other, and a small bench under the table, opposite the wall. Here are some recommendations:

Philippe Starck's Prive Caprice dining chairs for Cassina are elegant in black or white nylon or leather (see above).

The Calligaris Wing Chair (above) is a simple seating solution that works well for both conversation and dinner groupings.

Hannes Wettstein's sensuous Ariane Chair (above) from Cassina is a practical solution for dining rooms. Its fabric or leather covers are removable for easy cleaning and its aluminum legs and steel frame are extra sturdy.

West Elm's economical Garvey Leather Dining Chairs (above) are upholstered in an easy to clean, stainproof chocolate leather for practical daily use.

The Nelson Bench (above) is in the style of the classic George Nelson Bench and it comes in three different sizes.

Offi's Upholstered Bench Box with a lovely wool cushion made us smile. What a fun and whimsical element to any dining room! Use the box portion to store reading material or whatever suits your fancy. And the wheels allow the piece to be moved around your room, wherever you need the seating.

You can't go wrong buying furniture at a good auction house or antique gallery. You will get your pieces from reputable sources and learn more about the history of a piece -- and you are recycling some great design. The above photo shows a Treadway/Toomey Galleries 1950s Steelcase style upholstered bench.

3. Decorate with chairs and a table that are relatively easy to move around in the room in case you’re having more guests. The weight of the chairs and/or the floor covering can impact this. If you have an even floor surface, which also applies to carpeting, you can purchase furniture gliders for installing underneath table and chair legs for easy furniture rearranging.

4. Upholstering inexpensive folding chairs with the same fabric as the large chairs works well when having more company. Don’t forget, that adding a desk chair or mixing and matching any other chairs around a table when company arrives is acceptable, too.

The above photo shows Tracy Porter's terrific Returning Home folding chair with her Countryside Chair Cushion. Even a cushion done in the same fabric as what you might be using in the rest of the room can add a touch of elegance to your dining scene. The elegant black-and-white drapery fabric in the photo at the beginning of this entry was carried over into the chair upholstery, and that's a great decorating look.

Enjoy your beautiful dining room, Susan, and thanks for writing in to us!

  Do you have a question for the Design2Share decorating team? Write to us at info@design2share.com.

How Can You Fix an Old TV Niche Above a Fireplace?

Q. My son is interested in buying a home. The home design is perfect for him except the cut-out space over the fireplace in the living room that was used for older model TVs is huge. The space does not really accommodate the new plasma models which are now flat and wide, not deep and tall. I'm sure this is a decorating mistake for a lot of home owners that bought homes that had this design in them. How do you fix or decorate to accommodate for the new plasma models in this space. (from Donna)

A. Donna, thank you for your question. If your son is spending good money to make the home purchase in the first place, this design glitch should not hold him back in any way. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were.

We advise him to spend a bit more money to have a carpenter come in and add some sheetrock to the niche and make whatever sizing adjustment he needs to fit a new flatscreen.

There are certain types of televisions, like the LCD models for example, that feature speakers at the bottom of the TV rather than on either side. If your son goes with one of these sets, then it's not quite so horizontal a shape that you will need to fill in with your carpentry work. That tallness to the screen and speakers would help fill the existing niche space better. Just leave the back void and pack it forward with a piece of plywood and attach the TV to that.

Another good solution is to buy some broad casing material -- the wood molding that goes around a door -- and with some of this five- or six-inches-wide material, you can reshape that opening. It would cover the sheetrock on the left and right, but it would cover the void in the wall on the top and bottom of the new TV opening.

Then you would have your plasma or LCD screen showing within a picture frame.

One point to consider with plasma screens is that they usually don't have attached speakers. You will have other speakers in the room, and near the screen you will mount your Center Channel speaker. You can use a portion of the existing niche to mount the Center Channel speaker either above or below the plasma screen, filling in the rest of the niche/void as we've described above.

There are other creative options to using the existing niche to best advantage. Audio groups or sometimes millworkers can make the TV screen disappear behind a mechanized panel that slides along steel tracks and is operated by remote control. In a great article from This Old House, they describe a custom panel made for a homeowner with the monitor ventilated through a series of holes drilled into the wooden box that holds it, as well as through the door mechanism.

The FASTFRAME people have a nifty mechanical solution called VisionArt, and they are serious about hiding flatscreens. With their service, you can create a custom picture frame, select artwork (many are signed-by-the-artist limited editions), and use your TV remote control to turn your set on and off as you always do -- only your canvas-based artwork automatically rolls up and away for tube viewing and rolls back down to conceal your screen when you switch off.

In this photo, clever tri-fold shutters are used to close off and conceal the TV screen above a fireplace. This is a great non-mechanical stow-away solution.

Campbell & Strasser recently demonstrated to us a simple sliding mirrored panel that they created, easily slid up and down by hand, concealing a flatscreen over a fireplace. The mirror-encased-in-molding-and-mounted-on-a-vertical-sliding-panel solution was very clever, and their architectural woodworking is excellent.

Donna, many thanks for writing in to us at Design2Share. We hope your son proceeds with his home purchase -- and happy renovating!

  Watch our Design2Share Q&A video on the Value of a Fireplace to get more great ideas about decorating in and around your hearthside.

Photo Credits: ajc, eCoustics, This Old House