How to create a delicious family dining hub fit for all occasions

Sleek kitchens with storage walls melting into broken-plan living styles can incorporate stunning seating as well as display areas

Wall Paint in Oxford Navy and Pure, Ombre armoire in Chalk Paint in Oxford Navy and Athenian Black, Chalk Paint in Barcelona Orange, Annie Sloan.

Nothing beats gathering to eat, chat, gossip, and above all, to laugh about the world outside your little realm. If your family hovers over trays while watching TV, consider returning to the communal challenge of facing each other, once a day, or even once a week in 2024. 

There’s every chance to establish Sunday lunches with mobile phones and media blare banished for a precious half hour. Nurture bonding inter-generational exchanges and with practice, you can dial the numbers up when you’re feeling more hospitable. 

Grazing on food from listing side plates might do for a larger elbow-locked crowd, but there’s something really special about the intimacy of a sit-down dinner in the heart of someone’s home.

What is your entertaining style? Socialising might be a weekly affair involving guests, or something you rarely attempt. Hard-core hosts often work in a formal area and a casual dining area. Family and close pals sprawl over the scrubbed pine regularly and the dining table proper (used for homework and other practical weekly stuff) is launched for adult decadent evenings. 

Still, yesterday’s prim dining room, cloaked in scarlet or bruised black walls and picked in social aspic was wasted space and often strangled the logical flow of a busy household.

With a natural proximity to the kitchen, a typical open-plan kitchen/living area can be tailored out in dozens of clever, handsome and hard-working dining solutions. Where there is no structural definition of say a half-wall or island back, lighting suspended low and dimmed, you can zone a dining spot. 

M&S X Fired Earth Blenheim table, €1199, M&S X Fired Earth bench, €399. 

Diffuse light back from the tabletop and mix it with wall washers for a flattering, intimate glow. Look for pendants and sculptural rigs that can be lowered to visually anchor the table.

The semi-enclosed banquette featuring panels or country T&G boards to surrounding walls is having a moment. Where two chairs can sit, a bench seat can take three or four adolescent behinds. Like all dining solutions nestled near the kitchen, a banquette is cook-friendly as everyone can chat, without herding around a narrow galley.

This trend, with upholstered bench seating to one or two sides and free-standing chairs for contrast and interest, describes a whole range of built-in, versatile booth styles taken to a wall or corner. The look can be very grown up — a world away from a breakfast nook.

Use the CAD skills of your kitchen supplier to build out from the outward-facing length of your island or peninsula or the short end of a run of base cabinets. Sleek furnished kitchens with storage walls melting into the broken-plan living styles of 2024 can incorporate stunning banquettes with integrated cupboards, shelving, pantries, and display areas. 

They also offer useful room division where needed. I love the popular chic of a single high-backed, buttoned sofa nodding across the table to a couple of Carl Hansen Wishbones.

Whatever the composition, invest in the best-made dining table you can afford. You can disguise an everyday table with set dressing, but it should never wobble under elbow pressure. Blocks and screws on the underside should offer rock-solid structural stability. 

Glass is a poor choice for a multi-function family dining table where rustic or scrubbed wood finishes will disguise sticky finger marks. Add a secured, pretty oilcloth as an everyday shield against infant vandalism if you have to have one.

A table more than a metre wide will make cross-table conversation difficult. Narrower than 900mm and you’ll struggle for central serving space. Circular tables suit groups of less than eight, but the curves of round and oval tables politely direct everyone towards everyone else. 

Where access is tight, ensure you offer soft corners. Round and oval tables can be set into a curved or L-shaped banquette — maximising odd spaces and weird walls and offering easy access to slide to a setting. For antique fans, fixed and beautifully crafted, tilt-top Victorian breakfast tables come up regularly at sales and auctions.

Give each person at least 60cm of dining table length, with 90cm between the edge of the table and the nearest piece of furniture to the rear. Up this figure to 120cm if there is likely to be foot traffic behind a sitter. Be extremely careful about where table legs land. 

Even a huge table set on fussy, invasive supports that run across the floor can make using the table ends impossible. 

Check your pull-back space for chairs resting on any rug, leaving 90cm from the table’s edge to prevent unbalancing the seating.

Sophie Allport bench, €662, sophieallport.com.

Set-up dining spaces are long-time classics, with metamorphic beauties that rise to every occasion without bullying an already challenged kitchen or open-plan space. 

Even tiny house kitchens can include a dining spot for up to six. Ingenious fashions in shape-shifting dining areas emerged for bright, young things in the ’50s, with trestles and drop-down tables, and fold-out chairs hooked to the walls in cramped post-war flats. Explore drop-in, drop-downs, flip-ups and crank-out extending table mechanisms. 

A few suitable occasional chairs can trot to the table when needed, and for the rangy kitchen, there’s a new fashion emerging for a second table spot for kids to dine.

A formal table is generally best matched to the right chairs for its style, line or period, but you can have some fun with a simple contemporary or farmhouse table. Harlequin mix-or-match chairs in various designs right from the mid-19th century to the 1980s can be picked up for a song. Deliberately contrast carvers to enthrone you as hosts. If children will be using these chairs, choose washable easily changed-out seat pads, or go with leather — faux or real.

Quality plastic chairs surged in popularity due to the impact of the all-but-invisible Ghost chair range by Philippe Starck (c.2002). Casting Regency lines in Perspex, it’s now an acknowledged, chic classic and highly collectable in good condition. Stick to the real thing in resinous design by Kartell and Calligaris, as outright knock-offs are notoriously flimsy, and scratch easily.

For an open or broken-plan room, an occasional kids' dining area is ideal for busy socialites, kubeinteriors.com (Ireland).

Bring your measurements of an existing table with you to check for a comfortable table/chair marriage: 45cm is a standard seat height; 20cm between the top of the chair seat and the underside of the table is about right to allow us to cross our legs. 

For anything lacking upholstery, sit down and have a cheek shuffle to test for comfort; 55cm across and 60cm deep will support even a commodious backside. Remember if you buy something wildly fashionable, it’s intended to date. Lumps of shoddy furniture and mid-century faux won’t do well second-hand. Without a label, expect to donate these pretenders.

If your dining space is a roar from the kitchen, storage by the table site for dining proper is practical and takes the pressure off kitchen cabinetry. For storage walls and built-in cabinetry — tambour, pocket or slide doors, are available with any kitchen/wardrobe supplier. Avoid a space-devouring outward swing.

The latest in banquette dining offers oodles of rooms inside that bench base for flip-up seats or even integrated drawers. With open pew or kick-leg types, slide some baskets below.

Augusta kitchen shown in Graphite, cashandcarrykitchens.ie.

Shelving can run neatly overhead framing out artwork just above shoulder height (seated), adding a wonderful sense of enclosure. In terms of aesthetics, if you’ve always fancied panelling — this is your time, and there are primers on Instagram, Houzz and YouTube showing the power of a little moulding, a jigsaw and some pale or dramatically tinted flat matt paint.

If you prefer independent, free-standing storage for any dining area — slender, free-standing buffet units (new or vintage) can slide along the longest wall and offer another serving and display surface. Run a horizontal, low mirror or a single, fabulous painting or two along the wall behind your sideboard for a little 20th-century gallery glamour. Vandalised wardrobes and original tall armoires can be secured to the wall, with open and blind shelving for everything you need. So French, so lovely.