HomesDesign trend feature
Why interior designers think the dining room is making a comeback
London designers make the case for relaxed, everyday dining rooms with banquettes, rounded tables and upholstered chairs, not stuffy formality.
Kitchen-diners and sofa suppers have pushed the dining room to the margins. The Spaces cites an Aviva report finding that one in five homeowners has repurposed theirs. This feature gathers designers who argue the room isn't dying so much as loosening up, becoming somewhere to eat on an ordinary Tuesday, away from the clatter of the kitchen.
Anna Burles of Run For the Hills pictures a cosy room with devices left at the door, where a jigsaw or craft project can stay out overnight behind a closed door. Venetia Rudebeck of Studio Vero went further on a Notting Hill project, dropping the kitchen table altogether in favour of a dining room with a curved banquette and antique mirror panels that bounce light around.
Max Dignam credits softer, more tactile tastes: oval tables that help conversation, fully upholstered chairs that keep people lingering, lacquered walls, polished plaster and layered lighting. Not everything is muted, though. At One Palace Green, a Grade II-listed arts and crafts mansion near Kensington Palace, the main dining room, originally by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, now has brilliant green walls and gold-stencilled poetry.
Worth a read if you're weighing up whether to knock through or keep a door you can close. Designer Polly Ashman, currently fitting out three, reckons dining rooms are coming back.
Our summary of a story from The Spaces, published 12 October 2026. Read the original
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From The Spaces