19 Clever Ways to Make a Small Dining Room More Functional
House Beautiful February 9, 2025
Seller
House Beautiful February 9, 2025
Seller
Hosting and entertaining guests brings so much warmth and vivaciousness into your space, even though parties can sometimes feel cramped in a small home or apartment. But it’s all about perspective: Think of small dining rooms as intimate and cozy, not tight or inadequate. Whether you’re enjoying your favorite takeout order or serving a three-course meal for your loved ones, a smartly designed small dining room will always make mealtime better.
The best small dining room ideas refit the essential components—table, chairs, lighting—to accommodate the space. Size limitations are just a challenge to work around, not a barrier to being the best host you can be. Keep furnishings to a minimum and store your serveware in the kitchen or use vertical storage solutions like shelves or plate racks. The right paint colors can also help make your small dining room stand out. Brighten your space and make it feel larger with a light hue like white or pale blue. Or, choose dark and moody hues to enhance the intimate, cozy environment.
Keep reading to see 19 small dining room ideas from designers, and then incorporate your favorite aesthetics and solutions from each into your own dining space.
A dark paint color can cocoon a small dining room and create an intimate ambiance. Take inspiration from this black-walled space, grounded with natural wood accents.
Using mirrors to help make a small space feel larger is a well-known design trick—and it works! Here, a wall of framed mirrors makes this small dining room feel instantly brighter.
Inspired by restaurant seating, designer Michael Ellison chose to have two smaller dining tables rather than a large one that would overwhelm this small space. Now, friends can comfortably gather in groups, or the family can all sit together for some quality time.
The best table for a small dining room is, of course, a small one. This square dining table can comfortably fit four and still has room for a stunning floral centerpiece.
To maximize seating for the most guests possible, swap your regular dining room chairs for a bench or banquette. This seating can fit more people comfortably and allows your small dining room to tuck into an alcove or nook.
Instead of having a bulky credenza or china cabinet occupy valuable square footage in your small dining room, take to the walls to put your beloved dinnerware on display. This rustic plate rack offers a similar amount of storage while hardly taking up any space.
A lazy Susan is perfect for smaller spaces. These clever contraptions are basically just trays that rotate and they make it easier to get items (like salt and pepper) around the table without having to reach over anyone. A round one sits at the end of this small dining table in a room designed by Chloe Warner, where interior glass doors ensure that the light flows through to adjoining rooms, too.
Unlike chairs, a bench can seat more than one person. Even better if the bench is built into the island, serving as a natural transition into a more formal dining space right off the kitchen. In this small dining room by Jean Liu, the bench was added onto the opposite side of the island to double the room's use case and blend the more practical kitchen with the formal gathering area.
Open shelves are often the best storage option in a tight space, but you have to fill them wisely. Coordinating plates and serveware, like this classic blue and white collection, add a decorative element with a culinary tilt. The plates were the jumping-off point for everything in this preppy and sweet dining room designed by Cara Fox.
If you have to sacrifice part of your small dining room for a home office, get the best of both worlds by choosing furniture that can perform well for both tasks. This roomy farmhouse table in a home designed by Leanne Ford can function as a great place to spread out for larger creative projects and serve as a perch for a few work-from-home folks. But, when mealtime rolls around, it can also function as a dining room.
Two chairs and a corner banquette is a classic combo for a reason: it's a highly efficient use of space that also leaves plenty of room for fun. Together, they transform a bare corner into an elegant eating space, but it can also be a great backdrop for meetings and work. In this vivacious dining room nook designed by Ariene Bethea, the matching table and chair set creates just the right dose of cohesion.
Often considered a design no-no in other rooms, placing furniture against the wall frees up space for walking in a small dining room that shares the living room and/or kitchen. A long rectangular or oval table like the one in this open-concept space by Barrie Benson can also be great as a buffet table for parties.
China cabinets or sideboards are lovely, but their bulk can dominate a room and uses space inefficiently. Floating shelves or custom built-ins, on the other hand, can be customized to fit your needs (fill the whole wall with them, if you like!) and offer more flexible storage than standalone pieces. They're an especially good addition to a room with high ceilings, like this loft designed by Lauren Waters.
If you live in a rental or aren't ready to make any permanent changes, having a storage piece to keep your collections stored and organized is still a good idea. In this small dining room, designer Lathem Gordon forewent a large dining table so there was space on the floor for a display cabinet.
Both built-in bookcases and banquettes are meant to be directly next to the wall, offering as much seating, storage, and open floor space as possible—so when combined, they're a like small dining room superhero. And two banquettes are better than one! This clever set-up makes room for an entire family in a tight corner—and offers hidden storage under the seats.
Invest in a dining room table with extendable leaves so you can collapse them when not in use. It's a simple fix but it really does make all the difference. In this Scandinavian-style dining room designed by Victoria Sass of Prospect Refuge Studio, four chairs are tucked around the table, but it could seat 6 as is, and even more when fully extended.
In this space by Osklo Studio, a custom sofa accommodates the quirky shape of the room. The table and chair can also move aside when the space needs to serve as a more formal sitting room. Even if you can't splurge on custom seating, rethinking the angle of your dining room setup could help you squeeze in more space or get the most out of a living room that needs to accommodate a living area, too.
The built-in banquette is also a sneaky storage solution in this small dining room designed by Tamsin Johnson Interiors. Hidden drawers beneath the cushion can house things like placemats, napkins, and more. The paint color and the grooves in the exterior of the drawers match the cabinetry in the adjacent kitchen for a seamless look.
Employ this bit of visual trickery to make any small room seem bigger: A mirror's reflection is great at faking extra space and bounces light around the room to make it seem airier. For a more traditional and formal look, opt for antiqued mirrors, as Celerie Kemble did here.
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