Table & Chair Matchup

The dining room is one place people really do their home a disservice. 

How?

They have a matching dining set, a generic light fixture, and no rug under their table. 

Raise your hand if that's you. 

Don't worry, you're not alone. 

Just by adjusting those 3 things (mix up your chairs, add a fun light fixture, add a rug) you can really revamp your dining room. 

Just bought your dining set and can't afford new chairs?

 Easy. 

Keep your side chairs, but find some upholstered chairs to add as captain's chairs on each end of the table. 

It will mix it up just enough! Plus you'll have 2 extra chairs when you have guests over. 

Another option is painting your chairs a different color from your table and add some fun cushions or reupholstering the seats.

         
                                                             

When purchasing a rug for under your table, pull all of your chairs out from under the table and measure around your dining set from that point. You want your chair legs to stay on the rug when guests pull them out. 

The rule of thumb is 2 ft behind the chairs when they're pushed under the table.

*A tip: outdoor rugs work well in dining spaces because they are easy to clean! 

As far as light fixtures go, the bottom of the light should hang about 30-36" above the table. If you're ceilings are higher than 8', you can hang the light up to 3" higher for each additional foot of ceiling.

Also consider the scale of your light fixture. If you have a large table, make sure your light is large as well. It should be about 1/2 - 2/3 the width of your table. 

And finally,

Here's a fun little matchup of some tables and chairs that work well together. I've also included a few upholstered chair options if you just need to add those as captain's chairs. 

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