How to style your dining table (when it’s not being eaten at!)

An area of interior styling you don’t seem to find much advice on is how to style your dining table.

This large surface in the home often gets left out when styling or worse, becomes a dumping ground for bags, papers, laundry and a million other things!

We’ve curated a stack of gorgeous images to inspire you to style your dining table beyond meal times.

Related article: Dining room inspiration: 10 totally different (but gorgeous) dining room styles
Related article:
Gina’s home: Dining room reveal

Less is more

When your dining table is this fabulous, why hide it?! Interior Stylist Aimee Tarulli shows how just a few luxe items adds styling interest. The perfect dining table styling inspo for the minimalists among us.

Less is more dining table styling
Image via @aimeetarulli_stylist

Ceramic vessels

A trio of ceramic vessels in different shapes or sizes is a beautiful and simple way of styling your dining table. Add a pop of greenery in one for added interest.

Dining Curious Grace
Image via Curious Grace

Floral or greenery statement

A vase, or two, or three, filled with beautiful blooms or green leafy branches will bring colour and life to your dining space. You don’t necessarily need to go to the florist for these, Eucalyptus branches or fig branches (shown further below) could be foraged instead.

Beautiful dining space
Image via Fenton and Fenton
Darren and Dea dining and living
Image via The Block

Dining vignette

For those a little more confident with styling or wanting to challenge themselves, why not create a stylish dining vignette like this blush pink, copper and timber one?

Use a cutting board or tray as a base and then find items that relate to the dining space such as trivets, coasters or salt and pepper grinders to create a stylish arrangement.

We also love the arrangement Aimee created in her home using a feature tray, tall vase, cook book, candles and coaster.

Dining close up
Image via Reno Rumble
Dining room
Image via Aimee Tarulli. Photography by Martina Cemmola for Adore Home Magazine

The perfect pair

When playing with large scale home decor, 2 complementary pieces can look fabulous. On this dining table, Nicole Rosenberg of Liberty Interiors paired a glass vase of white tulips with a stunning fluted-rim bowl.

Liberty Interiors
Image via Liberty Interiors

Set for breakfast

Combine being efficient and stylish in one by using your breakfast bowls as styling props. Use a mix of ceramic bowls that reference artwork or other colours in your dining space.

Carly and Leighton dining
Image via Reno Rumble

Trio of vases

Just as a trio of ceramic pieces looks fab so too does a trio of vases. Why? Well items arranged in odd numbers — 1, 3, 5, 7 etc — are more balancing to the eye.

Again, in this dining space they’ve used a trick of adding greenery to one of the vases and we love how they’ve mixed up the colours too.

Contemporary dining
Image via Style Files

How do you style your dining table when it’s not being eaten at? Tell us in the comments below or link to your favourite inspiration picture!

And if you enjoyed these tips, be sure to ‘Pin’ this image to your Pinterest account for later.

Check out more dining room inspo here

How to style your dining table

This article was first published in November 2019 and continues to be updated with the latest tips and images

Gina Beschorner Style Curator

Welcome to Style Curator, your destination for daily interiors inspiration, styling tips, reno advice, home tours and DIY projects!

We're on a mission to help you create a home you love. And with plenty of tips and tricks, tutorials and other home inspo, we give you all the tools to achieve it!

I’m Gina, Founder and Interior Designer, and you can read more about Style Curator here.

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    4 COMMENTS

    1. I have been thinking about getting some new dining sets for my home and I wanted to look up some tips to go with it. I appreciated how it talked about combining being efficient and stylish in one by using your breakfast bowls as styling props. I think this is a great idea I will have to look around for the right bowls.

      • Hopefully you find the right mix of products for your space and don’t forget to use #stylecuratorchallenge when you share your pic online so we can see too 🙂

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