katie.lacy@letsgetcoffee.co.uk, Author at Modish Living

How to make a white dining room work

Minimalist dining room with wood dining table with black steel legs and wooden chairs

The Scandi minimalist look is still a hugely popular interior trend right now. So if you have white walls and a white ceiling how can you give your dining room some texture and warmth? A blank canvas is a wonderful starting point for your dining room, below we look at some ideas to introduce some homeliness while still keeping it fresh, cool and clear.

Reclaimed wood furniture

This is a great way to start. Warm, rustic, and homely – the minute you add reclaimed wood furniture you’re adding a warm and natural texture. Choose a reclaimed wood dining table, the table-top proudly boasts natural markings and undulations from its previous life. The Dorset trestle table is white painted to really embrace a white dining room theme, it’s a shining example of minimal style, accessorise the natural finish dining benches with cushions and a small throw to give additional texture to the room. We love to see a pendant light hanging over a dining table, to keep things fresh choose an unobtrusive white one.

Photo featuring: Dorset Reclaimed Wood Extendable Trestle Table

White linen

White table linen on a rustic dining table just oozes dining room chic and you can, of course, add an accent colour to mix it up a bit. This is also a great way to link with other coloured elements in the room and keep the coordination going throughout your dining space.

Flowers and houseplants

Houseplants are so popular right now, especially while we have all been staying at home more. Adding pot plants into a crisp white dining space adds an element of nature that not only brightens your room but is also proven to have health benefits. A vase of fresh-cut flowers is another option, choose something seasonal – in summer impressive gladioli or bold sunflowers and in autumn, dahlias can be arranged in a clear glass vase.

Photo featuring: Standford Industrial Reclaimed Wood Extending Table & Bench.

Dining chairs

If you don’t like too many accessories then you can break up the white by using upholstered dining chairs or faux leather chairs. There are so many different styles and colours to choose from you will be spoilt for choice. You can mix and match benches with white dining chairs and cushions, or add coloured cushions yourself as another way to get some more colour into the room.

Photo featuring: Dorset Reclaimed Wood Chairs

Add contrasting elements

With all this talk about furniture and accessories, we must not forget the floor and the option to add a rug. For example, a green rug in a crisp white room with a rustic dining table and some houseplants will give your room a completely coordinated theme, team this up with a contrasting small armchair in a corner and again you are adding more features and interesting elements to your blank canvas.

Photo featuring: Louis de Poortere Fading World Oyster Green Rug

How to set the mood in your dining room

Two candles on a rustic wood table with a wool blanket

The dining room table is used for many things, not just eating and entertaining, it is often used as a home office, for homeschooling, homework, as well as crafts and hobbies. So when it comes to lighting it is a good idea to consider what it might be used for and when. During the winter months, it will most likely be dark when you eat your evening meal so lighting is an important element to consider.

Over dining table lighting

The dining table is the most important component of your dining space meaning a ceiling pendant over the table is always a good start. A bamboo pendant light hanging over a reclaimed wood dining table is a match made in heaven, the beautiful natural wood grain and natural bamboo work well together; hang one over an industrial dining table and it will soften the heavy industrial style. You can get double or even triple pendant ceiling lights to make something as simple as a light fitting, a whole extra feature in your room.

Photo: Bamboo Manta Tapered Pendant Light

Layered lighting

Take time to play with lighting in your dining room by layering the lights. Suspend a modern pendant light over the table, add some glass table lamps on a sideboard or console table, use fairy lights or candles to add subtle accent lighting around in the room. Use lighting to accentuate a favourite feature in your room such as an open fireplace or a wall picture.

Candles

Candles are a timeless classic when it comes to mood lighting. You can use a couple to create a romantic and intimate mood and can use more to give the feel of a grand banquet. Scented candles are great after you have enjoyed your dinner, choose a relaxing aromatherapy candle to wind down at the end of the evening.

Table lamps on sideboards

If you have a sideboard in your dining room you can place a glass table lamp on it. You may not always want bright overhead lighting for a more laid back and romantic feel. After you have finished your meal you can switch to more subtle indirect lighting for after-dinner drinks with your dinner party guests.

Fairy lights

Fairy lights are very popular and are perfect if you prefer not to light candles in your home. We love these wire weave fairy lights, you can leave them as a decorative feature on a sideboard and when the dinner pots are cleared away pop them on the dinner table as a centrepiece which gives a soft and cosy glow.

Photo credit: @justalittlebuild

Mirrors

Mirrors are always a good choice for helping with lighting issues. A cleverly placed wall mirror will work with well-placed lighting to give a feeling of more space, brighten a dark corner, break up a wall with no window as well as reflect light around the room.

House Tour: A Constant Dreamer’s Cotswold Home

Sarah Moorhouse, Instagrammer behind A Constant Dreamer, opens the door to her beautiful home in the Cotswolds.

Standford Medium Reclaimed Wood Extending Dining Table

Images of Sarah’s light-filled and sophisticated home attracted not just our attention, but thousands of followers who lust after her timeless and effortless style as much as we do. The four bedroom home exudes a modern farmhouse feel, mixing warm neutral shades and textures with investment pieces, statement art and beautiful accessories to create a space that you’d expect to see in a glossy interior magazine.

HOUSE AT A GLANCE

Who lives here: Sarah & Tim & their two pups, Pip & William

Location: Cirencester, Cotswolds

Size: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

TYPE OF PROPERTY

A Georgian townhouse located in the centre of town arranged over three floors with a cellar. Sarah was drawn to the house because of its room proportions, ceiling heights and location. They purchased the property in 2014 and lived in the house for three years, doing only a basic make-over, until the Spring of 2018 when they started a full renovation.

On the ground floor Sarah’s focus was to restore the period features that had been stripped out. She renovated the kitchen first, adding new limestone flooring, then moved on to the living room, office and creating a new shower room and courtyard. She then worked her way up the remaining two floors, including redecorating three of the bedrooms, adding period features, such as coving, new curtains and blinds and carpets (twice!), alongside the family bathroom. The fourth bedroom is currently unused, but Sarah has her eye on converting it into a dressing room. “I love that from the outside at the front the house looks like a two up two down, but once you step inside it opens up and surprises everyone who first visits.”

KITCHEN

The kitchen is the hub of Sarah’s home and was one of the first rooms she renovated. It has a large sash window at one end with a lovely long window seat underneath, which creates a stunning focal point. The original cream units and orange coloured wooden worktop made the room too dark, so Sarah brightened it up by replacing the cabinet door fronts and end panels, adding a quartz worktop and a Lacanche range cooker, which along with our very own Standford Medium Reclaimed Wood Extending Dining Table, are showpieces for the room. “It took me 18 months to find the right table and it’s ‘the one’. I love the reclaimed sleepers; it’s the perfect marriage of old and modern and fits in perfectly with its surroundings.”

LIVING ROOM

Located at the front of the house and bathed in natural light in the afternoons, Sarah made the most of the light and space in the compact living room. She added a Georgian style marble fireplace and painted the walls in French Grey Pale by Little Greene. The 100% polypropylene carpet was one of Sarah’s best investments, especially with two small dogs! “Before that, we had 100% wool carpets which we had to replace after our pups destroyed them after 18 months. That hurt!”

MASTER BEDROOM

The master bedroom is still work in progress. Sarah painted the walls in Cornforth White by Farrow & Ball and bought a new king size bed to go with the mixture of ebay finds and upcycled old furniture to add colour. The window dressings is the next part of the room to complete with Sarah wanting to add curtains with colour and print.

“I love a mix of old and new pieces in homes to make it feel more lived in and I love colour, prints & texture.”

What’s your favourite room in the house and why?

My favourite room changes all the time and usually because of the seasons! At the minute I would probably say our top-floor bedroom because of the light and the views. We often go up there to sit and read and the sash window makes a real feature of the room. However, once spring hits you’ll usually find me in the courtyard!

What would be your dream property?

I would quite like a Georgian cottage in the future with a lovely garden. I love Georgian properties for their symmetry, well-proportioned rooms and high ceilings.

Whose interior style do you lust after?

I don’t lust after one particular person’s style but rather a collective of styles. I’m an avid Instagram user and love following interior accounts for inspiration.

For some more interior inspiration, check out Sarah’s Instagram account @aconstantdreamer

All images Sarah Moorhouse @aconstantdreamer

How to choose a large dining table for your family

Large wood dining table with food and arms

A dining table is most likely the place where you and yours all sit down together at the end of a busy day, a place where you enjoy your dinner and talk over the day’s events. It’s always a good idea to have a big dining table so you have plenty of space to put dishes on the table and plenty of room to spread out and dine comfortably. But what if you have a large, or growing, family? Here we look at some large super stylish rustic and reclaimed wood dining tables, which can be paired with other reclaimed wood furniture, as well as with a more contemporary interior.

Size matters

How many people normally sit around your dining table? Do you have guests often? Does your dining table double up as an occasional workspace? Do the kids use it to do their homework? Do you need a bit of space to fit a highchair around it? If you have the space for a large table then all is good and you can get a lovely large homely rustic dining table with plenty of chairs to fit around it. If your dining space does not allow it then an extendable dining table might be just what you need.

The Portobello oak extendable wood dining table is a great choice. A gorgeous light solid oak dining table, in a minimalist Scandi style which can be combined with a dining bench, perfect for the little ones to squeeze up when you need a bit of extra space! Another rustic option would be the Farringdon dining table, it extends from the centre of the table with a cleverly hidden mechanism to ensure little fingers won’t get caught.

Reclaimed dining table

A reclaimed wood dining table is a clever option, the nature of the wood used means it has beautiful natural texture and undulations in the wood so small “everyday use” marks, chips and dents easily blend in. A reclaimed wood table is a homely and warm place to sit around and will make a stunning centrepiece in your kitchen or dining room.

The Standford extendable wood dining table is crafted from reclaimed wood often over 100 years old, with old nail marks adding interest and plenty of character, it easily extends to become a six-seater dining table. The Dorset is another super stylish extendable trestle table, for which there is the option to add a combination of benches and / or chairs.

Spider leg table

A spider leg table just makes so much sense when you need to add extra diners as there are no table legs to compete for space with! You can position your chairs anywhere you like, move them up a bit when you have guests and spread out when you have none.

The stunning Sussex oak oval dining table has a spider leg, is 2.5 metres long, it combines style and industrial elegance with a classic parquet top. It will also give the impression of taking up less room because of the rounded corners – meaning an oval table is a good choice if you still want a large table in a smaller or narrow room. Another bonus is the little ones not banging knees into table legs, so hopefully no kicking under the table!

Practical and stylish hallway storage furniture

empty entrance hall with red door and houseplant

In our last blog, we looked at ways you can style a hallway – tips and ideas to create a warm welcome to your home. To follow on, in this blog, we look at clever hallway storage to help keep the space clear and clutter-free.

Seating with storage below

There is nothing worse than coming in with bags of shopping and falling over pairs of shoes strewn across the floor. Of course, a shoe rack is an obvious solution, but as we are looking at practical storage we like a shoe storage bench with a seat on top so you can sit down while putting your shoes on. You could choose one with wicker baskets to hide shoes away in, you can also pop other items in this such as hats, gloves, scarves, umbrellas, even dog leads…all those things you will be looking for on your way out. Another option is a tall shoe rack so you can style the top of it with a houseplant, a table lamp and a conveniently placed bowl to keep keys in.

Under stairs cupboards

If you have an under stairs area you can get some fitted cupboards installed which is a very practical and clutter-free solution to hallway storage. But if you prefer the natural beauty of reclaimed wood hallway furniture then this would be the place to add hallway storage such as a bookcase, a ladder shelf unit, a storage bench, a chest or wooden shoe storage, tucked out of the way but very easily accessible on your way out of the house.

Coat racks

Coats are another thing that we really do need to keep in the hallway. You can get a simple rack mounted on the wall, or a traditional hat and coat stand. If you need a little more room for coats you can get an open wardrobe, these will often have a rack on the bottom and a shelf on the top so you can add baskets or boxes for hidden storage.

Console table

A reclaimed wood console table is the perfect addition to your hallway being nice and narrow they take up little floor space. One with a couple of drawers like the Chelwood console table, pictured above, to store items you need on your way out.

Warm welcomes – What to put in your hallway

Hallways are generally not very big and can be dark and uninteresting places, basically, a space that no one really spends time in and just leads you on to the more happening rooms in your home.

But it should not be neglected, first impressions matter! The hallway is the first thing people see when they come to our home. Even if they don’t actually come in they will most likely get a sneaky peek as they stand on the doorstep. So what can we put in a hallway to make it an attractive and inviting space?

Keep it light

Brighten your hallway by painting it in a light colour, this will give it a light and airy feel – and most importantly will make it feel bigger. It is also easy to accessorise if walls are a light or neutral colour.

Lighting

The Vance Neutral Lamp on a Reclaimed Wood Lamp Table looks great. It will give a cosy vibe to your hallway.

Mirrors and pictures

Mirrors are always a good idea in the hallway – an opportunity for a final once over before you leave the house! And of course, we all know they give the feeling of space and reflect light. The Elmer Rustic Window Mirror (pictured below) would be an eye-catcher to anyone entering your home. You can add some of your favourite pictures on the wall – they don’t have to be landscapes – they could be photos of your family and friends to give your visitors a warm welcome as well as being a talking point.

Console table or bookshelf

A reclaimed wood console table is a classic piece of hallway furniture, on this, you can place a decorative bowl to keep keys in, hang a large wall mirror over it, stand a table lamp on it, place a pot plant or fresh flowers on it – consoles provide a perfect focal point for you to accessorise in your own style. A reclaimed wood bookcase would also fit in here, being narrow it won’t take up much floor space but it provides plenty of shelving not only for books but also for a few of your favourite decorative pieces.

Flooring

It’s a good idea to have easy-clean, heavy-duty flooring in the hallway, tiles, wood, laminate are all good for the inevitable wet and muddy footwear – but you can add a floor runner if you want to brighten it up a bit and introduce a bit of colour to the hallway.

Clever Storage

There are many hallway storage solutions that combine practicality and good looks, benches with storage underneath, coat racks, boot crates etc. – keep an eye out for our next blog where we delve into this a little deeper!

Ways to get your kitchen ready for summer

reclaimed wood dining table and green velvet dining chairs

This summer we may all be spending a little more time at home, so we thought we could see how we can bring the garden into the kitchen and make it a more summery place to be.

On the continent, outdoor summer kitchens are a popular addition to many homes, perfect for living and entertaining outside in the warmer months. Here we look at how we can turn our indoor kitchen into a bright and summery place to enjoy.

Open your kitchen to the garden

If you are lucky enough to have large patio doors that look out to your garden, arrange your kitchen furniture to make the most of the view. Beautiful reclaimed wood kitchen furniture will bring an additional natural element into your kitchen. To give some continuity between the spaces, place some tall indoor plants in floor pots at the edge of the doors. If you can, position your barbecue near the entrance to your kitchen so you are not running back and forth on alfresco cooking nights.

Brighten your kitchen

Light, sunny and airy – use light linen in your kitchen and add an accent colour. Blue, green, yellow or red are wonderfully bright and summery colours which mimic the sea, grass, the sun and flowers. You can bring in these colours using relatively inexpensive items such as cushions, table napkins, plant pots, vases and candlesticks, with these you can easily produce a bright and summery display on a homely rustic wooden dining table. If your kitchen has a dark corner you can add a reclaimed wood sideboard with a table lamp, or fairy lights, on it and a wall mirror to reflect light around the room.

Add some Indoor plants

An indoor herb garden is a great place to start and it doesn’t take up much room, you can just choose your five favourite herbs to get started. You don’t have to be restricted to just herbs either, tomato or houseplants in terracotta pots on a sunny windowsill will also do the trick. It’s a great way to get a bit of greenery in if you live in a flat or have a small garden. Cut flowers always look fab, go for something seasonal, a vase of bright sunflowers placed on a reclaimed wood dining table really adds a sprinkling of summer to a room!

Get ready for Barbecues

Barbecues are the ultimate in summer entertaining – when we have guests the last thing we want to be doing is prepping and hunting around for barbecue utensils. Set aside some space in the kitchen to keep tongs, slices, glasses, plates and serving dishes……much easier than searching around last minute to find everything you need, when we would all rather be making a start on sundown cocktails! Have a few easy but tasty recipes up your sleeve, include some side dishes that don’t need cooking that you can prepare well in advance. Do any other prep work as early as possible, and have everything ready and waiting for your guests.

How to glam up your dining room with glorious gold

wood dining table with gold candlesticks

You can add timeless sophistication to your dining space with the use of gold. Whether you opt for furniture with gold elements or go for the more subtle option of just accessorising in gold.

Here are some ideas on how to dazzle up your dining room.

You might already have some gorgeous reclaimed wood furniture in your dining room that you don’t want to part with. By simply adding a gold wall mirror, some wall art with a gold frame or a clock, it could even be an antique gold if you prefer a more rustic look, you can transform the feel of the room. You can add more gold elements, by using gold cutlery, serving dishes and table linen when dining. To really embrace the theme you can add gold by having a feature wallpapered wall in gold, some gold curtains or even a rug with gold in it. An ornate gold chandelier over a dining table will never look out of place.

If you are starting a gold-themed dining room from scratch then now is the time to consider dining furniture with gold elements. The contrast of dark wood and gold is undeniably a classic combination. Below we have styled the elegant Belfort table, which blends a dark textured resin top with striking gold legs, with the sumptuous Skyline Ella Dining Chairs.

The Blackbone gold extendable dining table is another one of our favourites. We love how it adds a chic twist to industrial furniture by having gold legs rather than the normal black, perfect for adding dining room sparkle. The dark oak rustic dining table top features a classic parquet design, as it is extendable it can seat up to ten, making it perfect for comfortable and glamorous entertaining. To complete the theme you can add a sideboard from the same range, perfect to pop some glitzy decorative items on such as candlesticks, pictures or a table lamp.

Cream and gold is another great combination – you can keep the decor a clean light cream and add a gold extendable dining table then style this with gold-framed dining chairs upholstered in a cream fabric. Depending on your style you can go for a classic style of chair to achieve a more traditional look or choose a modern dining set for a contemporary look.

We have all seen the gorgeous vibrant colour schemes in stately home dining rooms – for this, you can blend bold vibrant colours like red, green and blue with all that glitters and really get to grips with some majestic interior styling.

Which is for you? A round or rectangular dining table?

dark kitchen with dark round table and pink chairs

We just love a reclaimed wood dining table here at Modish Living. People automatically think of the traditional farmhouse rectangular version, but when should we consider a round one?

Here we look at some reasons for going for the circular option and why it might be the best choice for your kitchen, dining or living space.

First, you need to consider how much space you have for your new round dining table with chairs and how many people will be normally be seated at it – do you have guests often and need the option of extra space? If you only have a couple of diners most days but still like to entertain, then a small round dining table with an extension leaf would be an ideal choice for you. For a guide on how big your table should be, we suggest a 150cm diameter to seat five comfortably, if you have room, then a large round dining table with a diameter of 180cm would comfortably seat eight people.

A rectangular table works well in a rectangular room but a round dining table with no corners gives the impression of taking up less space, the same applies with an oval dining table. A round kitchen table is also the perfect choice as a breakfast table, again giving the impression of taking up less space in one of the busiest rooms in your home. Opt for a minimalist Scandinavian style to really keep that cluttered feeling at bay.

A round dining table would also look great in a small open-plan living space. Consider a round dining table set, this would also solve the dilemma of which type of dining chairs could be styled with the table. The Standford reclaimed wood dining table is featured below. A round table with one pedestal leg allows you to place the chairs where you want as well as preventing diners from annoyingly banging their own legs into the table legs!

One of the best aspects of having a round dining table is that it allows all diners to see each other, to make eye contact as they talk and also reach across more easily….one of the reasons they are so popular at weddings and functions. They are perfect for friends and families who enjoy playing board and card games – all can see the board and easily reach across for counters and cards!