Food has a way of uniting people. In fact, most of us don’t even consider inviting people over unless we have plenty of good food and drinks on hand. Usually, the crowd ends up gathered in the kitchen, drinks and plates in hand. No one thinks to gather in the dining room, if there is one. This room seems to have become the catchall for a buffet at the least, and for very special occasions at most. Remodelers and interior designers are realizing that the best ways to get modern families to use their traditional dining rooms again are to take the tradition out of the equation, tear down some walls and try some out-of-the-box interior design.

Revitalizing the room
“A growing trend we’re finding is to cannibalize existing unused space for more useful functions,” says Scott Foerst, project coordinator for SawHorse Inc. “Homeowners are taking over the old living rooms as larger, informal dining spaces. The old dining rooms get enveloped into newer kitchen spaces, now large enough for the eat-in island that could never fit.”

Many families, like the Chamberlains of Tucker, are finding remodelers like Small Carpenters at Large to give their dining areas more harmony, while still keeping a traditional table and chairs, so they have more flow between the areas.

“It’s really less of a dining room now than a central place between our living room and our new addition, the music room,” says David Chamberlain, who hosts Sagebrush Boogie, a rockabilly and western swing music show on 89.3 WRFG. “It’s a small house that’s been broken up into more points of interest. Now it unfolds, so to speak, rather than us being slapped in the face with the house.

Designer Gina McNew can relate to the need to revive her space, but instead of remodeling, she redesigned. When she inherited her grandmother’s traditional wedding china, she immediately and reverently placed it, museum-like, in her formal dining room, rarely to be touched. Her dining room didn’t gather dust, but only because her grandmother’s plates had to be wiped, and she says she had to “schlep into the dining room once or twice a month to polish the silver.” When guests visited, she watched their hesitant body language as they peeked their heads around and said, “Oh, how nice,” and walked around the room to get to the kitchen, where everyone inevitably gathered.

“It looked like a display that said ‘Do not disturb,’ ” McNew says. Then she had an epiphany. “Finally, I realized I didn’t have to be obligated to display it, so I packed all the china away, then I went about decorating the dining room the way I had always hoped.”

Packing away the china was just the beginning. “It changes constantly now,” McNew says. “I can change the hutch seasonally, change the plates and match the decor. It’s all about feeling like I can walk into this room, and because I have fun with it, when people come into my house, people feel comfortable. Now they stop, look in and say, ‘Oh, this is pretty,’ and then gather around it—people are curious.”

Color me hungry
McNew attributes part of her dining room’s new life to the paint colors she chose—persimmon, yellow and shades of burgundy, which she says are inviting and cozy. Other interior designers are seeing the same trend. Homeowners are leaning toward colors that are taken from foods that remind us of harvest, abundance and prosperity, such as shades of green, orange and deep wine or berry reds.

“A cozy feeling is usually associated with shades of orange—it invokes food, as do the brown tones,” says Dewey Sadka, creator of the Dewey Color System, a personality test used by human resource departments. He also is the chair of the Color Marketing Group, which predicts color trends one to three years ahead. “If I were starting over in my dining room, in Atlanta, I would think of using a really pretty color combination in brown, orange and white,” he says. Sadka also says bringing the colors of nature into the home, particularly during Thanksgiving, is not only inviting, but also instinctual.

“We bring them in because, to us, instinctually, we are more relaxed in nature, and when you bring nature in, you allow yourself to relax more, feel better. It’s why we make our dining room decor fall-like so often,” Sadka says. “In the winter, it’s somewhat about nesting; it’s tied to our sense of security. We need to feel emotionally that we are going to make it through the winter.”

Musical chairs
Even though families are starting to open up their dining rooms to give them more flow, spaces still seem to dictate tables that are square with a “king” and “queen” position at each end. With traditional sit-down dinners in the dining room, this has, of course, created plenty of drama as to who gets to sit closest to the host or hostess, or to mom or dad.

Aerah Davis and Susie VanFossen of SheaJules Designs are trying to reshape that trend. “We’re trying to use more round tables, instead of square, which work better for games
and puzzles,” Davis says. When the Chamberlain family renovated, they decided on a round table, as well.

“We chose a circle table, rather than break up the room with a square, and thought that the round table would be a more democratic seating arrangement,” Chamberlain says.

Because of this slow shift in perspective, people also continue to have the traditional accompanying furniture, but with a twist for parties. “China cabinets are not as popular as buffet-style furniture,” Davis says. She suggests to her clients that, just as they are repurposing rooms, they also should repurpose the furniture. “People that have china cabinets that they can’t get rid of could color out the glass with spray frost (or tissue paper), line it with fabric and put their good china in their cabinets where they will actually use it,” she says. Then the reworked hutch can be used as storage for games, puzzles, letter-writing tools, craft supplies or as seasonal clothing storage.

For single people, or couples without children, instead of adding a new hutch to the dining room, VanFossen suggests creating a sitting area off to the side of the dining table, like a reading corner with comfy chairs and an accent lamp. That makes a perfect Sunday morning spot to read the paper.

McNew reminds us that we don’t have to stick with convention when decorating or remodeling our homes. “An architect puts labels on the rooms because, when you do the plans, you have to sell the space. But if a particular room isn’t conducive to the way the family lives in a house, that doesn’t mean you have to use it as its labeled,” McNew says.

Whatever you decide to do with your dining room, just remember—it’s all about your taste.