How to Create a Contemporary Dining Room

In the age of the celebrity chef, the pressure to create sumptuous restaurant quality meals means that even the most friendly dinner party is expected to be a dazzling culinary display in a sophisticated, stylish setting. If you want your dinner parties to be fondly remembered, it's important to make sure that your dining room is up to scratch, and one of the best ways to ensure that your dining area inspires relaxed conversation is to go for a sleek, elegant contemporary look that will also help your food to look irresistible.

A contemporary dining room is defined by its fresh and innovative approach to colour, texture and space, which makes it hard to successfully navigate the huge range of modern dining room furniture and accessories. That's why we've provided this guide, which is intended to help you to achieve a contemporary look that is warm, inviting, and which suits your individual tastes and personality.

Colour

Contemporary style demands an intelligent approach to colour, a departure from the norm. Try using bold, unusual colours with modern ideas like feature walls to really give your dining room that cutting-edge feel. If you need some inspiration, check out Fired Earth's stunning range of wall colours, specially selected by Kevin MacLeod, architect, designer, and presenter of Channel 4's Grand Designs.

Texture

This room uses a wooden dining table to
bring warmth to its contemporary look

Use of texture can really make an impact - when you think of a contemporary styled dining room, you may get an image of sleek, glass or metal furniture and unbroken straight lines, but in recent years, designers have incorporated the more warm, soft and inviting textures of more traditional materials such as solid oak, pine or ash. This allows you to build your dining room around a wooden dining table, for a great combination of traditional character and contemporary design, saving more modern textures such as metal or glass for other items and accessories, providing variety.

Space

The fabric blind used on this window
maximises the light

The use of space is really what defines contemporary style, with a focus on clean, uncluttered surroundings and the creative use of lighting. Use sideboards or chests to provide enough storage to keep your surfaces clear, and make sure you get curtains or blinds that allow you to maximise the light that comes from your windows, but which also look good when drawn. Make sure that you choose a lighting scheme that keeps the ceiling clear - think recessed halogen spotlights and carefully positioned low level lighting.

If you need a little extra inspiration, Channel4.com have a great gallery of contemporary dining room design ideas, which is well worth a look.

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