Decorating a Mis-Matched Dining Room

The first time you rent your very own apartment or house, friends and relatives often either give you hand me down essentials or they go out and buy you some of the basic necessities to get started with. And while this is very nice, welcome, and useful, most of us end up with a variety of home decor items that don’t match. As the years pass and we collect decorating accents and accessories from various sales, flea markets, and other friends or family members though, sometimes it can seem as if nothing we have matches at all.

And the dining room seems to be the worst place this occurs most often at. Since dishes, silverware, and pots and pans are one of the first things we need to live in our own home, these are the items that are given to us most often. So we can find ourselves with a large variety of beautiful kitchen or dining room accessories that don’t quite seem to go together in any way.

Thankfully though, there are some excellent ways to creatively pull together a mis-matched dining room, and it doesn’t have to break your budget. Not only do these tips help you make use of the various decor accents and accessories you already have, but you’ll often find yourself with a beautifully decorated room once you’re finished, and the style is completely unique to you.

Now, whether you have an actual dining room or not doesn’t really matter. For the purpose of these examples, any eating area of your home will do. A breakfast nook, eat in kitchen, or breakfast bar can all be pulled together and spruced up quite nicely with a little bit of forethought and work on your part.

If you have a dining table and chairs, you may have a mis matched set like so many people do. Perhaps your chairs all match but they don’t go with the table, or maybe the set is just plain ugly. Alternatively, it may be in a color you don’t care for, or it simply doesn’t match with anything else you own.

Changing the look of your dining room table and chairs is quite easy to do though. All you need is a bit of fabric. You can do some sewing yourself if you’d like, or buy ready made items, or simply drape unfinished fabric in strategic ways. Choose fabrics that either match or compliment each other in some way, and tie into the color and design scheme you want that room to have.

Use fabric on the table to cover it completely if you’d like. Tablecloths work well for this but again you can use unfinished fabric swatches too. Alternatively you can use a table runner to cover most of the table top, or use fabric pieces to set out placemats.

One large piece of fabric in the middle of the table can be turned so that the corners are draping down over each side of the table for instance, and your centerpiece sits in the middle. This will allow you to cover most of the table while leaving a little showing, and it works well if you have a deep, dark polished wood table for instance.

Fabric is also quite useful for redecorating your chairs. You can tie fabric onto the seats, backs, or both to create an entirely new look for instance. Alternatively you might want to try painting the chairs, and simply putting new matching cusions onto the seat areas to make them look brand new and completely different.

Another excellent way to make a huge decorating impact in your dining room is simply by using a few accents and accessories. Putting matching or complimentary table mats on the table for instance, does a wonderful job of pulling everything together. Pretty cloth table napkins with a simple ring around them will help too, as will setting out some of your dishes to be on display as a decorating accent.

Your dishes don’t have to match fully either. In fact, mixing together some neutral colored dishes such as tan or white with others that have some color in them is an excellent way to make use of multiple patterns and designs your dishes might have.

Try sitting a pretty colored coffee cup inside a neutral colored bowl for instance, or sit it on top of a salad plate. Put two dinner plates together too, or a salad plate on top of a dinner plate. Just by layering your dishes in this manner, you create a unique and sophisticated decorating style using what you already have on hand.

Don’t forget to try different combinations of your dishes together either. Changing them each week or month can give your decorating theme a fresh new look instantly. And remember too that there are a variety of ways you can set up a table centerpiece that adds to your overall decorating theme.

A table centerpiece can be a simple vase with silk flowers in it, or it can be a decorative china platter which has silk flowers arranged in a creative way. You can even simply scatter potpourri on the platter if you’d like, or sit a pretty teapot in the center of it too.

© 2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.