Casual vs Formal Dining Rooms

An informal dining room can be one of two things. The first jumps on the open-plan living trend, where the walls are taken down and several of your downstairs rooms merge into a central living hub.

Kitchen, living room and dining room all share the same space, and that’s what has the biggest effect on making a dining room feel more relaxed. Activity happens all around it from cooking in one direction to the television being on it another; the fact it’s a communal spot makes the vibe much more casual. Everyone will want to pull up a chair at the dining table, whether it’s to eat, to sit and chat or to work.

When it turns into much more than its main function – somewhere to eat – that’s what tells you best of all that it’s a more laidback, unrestrained and flexible part of your home.

Option number two for a more casual dining room style is about how the table is used. Even if your dining table is in its own room – a broken-plan layout – it can still be a casual part of the home. If it’s the table from which you eat every day of the week instead of having meals at the kitchen table, on the island or at the breakfast bar, or on your lap, by way of virtue it makes it a casual room. It’s part of your daily routine instead of being a separate dining area saved just for special occasions or dinner.

Whether you’ve chosen (as your first step towards a casual dining room) to make your dining space part on an open-plan room, or the table where every meal takes place in a separate part of the house, the ideas don’t end there. Setting the tone for your dining room also has a lot to do with the styling of your table.

Ideas for making a more casual dining room statement start with leaving the table undressed. It’s the first lesson in how to make a formal dining room feel less formal. When the table isn’t set, it makes the dining area feel like an open invitation to sit down and relax. Compare that to when it’s set for an occasion, and it feels as though you can’t sit down unless it’s when food is served – or about to be. Keep the placemats and the crockery at bay, concentrating instead on a floral centrepiece or a decorative bowl placed in the middle.

But if the dining room is in an open-plan, convivial environment and you prefer to keep the table laid, dress it back down by choosing chairs that mirror the relaxed furniture in the room. This will help the dining room to feel more casual, because if the dining chairs are upholstered in a similar material to that of your sofa or footstool, there’s an underlying message saying, come sit down and relax.

On the topic of dining chairs, they play a huge part in defining the character of your dining room. The more laidback the shape and style of your chair (or bench), the less formal your dining room will appear. Compare the contemporary scooped dining chairs in the bright white Greg Natale dining room pictured, or the Eames DSW-inspired chairs in his other dining corner scheme with the more formal silhouettes in the LuxDeco dining room further on in the article. The difference in their aesthetic completely changes the dynamic of the room.

Formal dining table ideas pivot around how the space is going to be used. If it’s purely for grander occasions, this will dictate what sort of table you need. Go with the sense of pomp and ceremony and choose a large, stately, rectangular table that can fit plenty of people around it.

By the same token, if you’re going to be using it more frequently, then it’s worth looking at extendable designs that have more intimacy for when there’s fewer people, but can grow to host a big gathering. Remember that a circular table feels less formal than a squared edge one, if you want to soften the tone of the room. These will extend into an oval which is a good balance between formal and relaxed.