Making the most of a small dining area

We can’t all be lucky enough to have a house with spacious rooms – especially in London, where the cost of a large house is roughly equal to the cost of a similarly sized structure built for space travel.

Many of us will want to make efficient use of every inch of our property in order to make the most of our purchase, and there are few places where this is more difficult than a dining area. Whether your building was assigned a very small space for a dining area, or simply doesn’t have one, we’re here to give you some tips for making the best of your circumstances.

A roundtable and banquette

Roundtables have been a good idea since before King Arthur. It’s not just that no one can sit at the end and declare themselves the head of the table, they also offer more efficient use of space. If combined with a banquette seating area, a corner of your property could be transformed into a charming dining nook. Extra points if you get a pedestal table, so there are no corner legs to have to shift around.

Go ‘café’

Cafés tend to be pretty good at making the most out of their space, especially at making room for diners in small spaces. Despite the small space, cafés cleverly arrange their furniture so anyone sitting down does not feel claustrophobic. Taking inspiration from this, you could try a simple small table up against a wall, two comfy chairs, some light and maybe a vase with some flowers (why not?), and you’ll have a chic café feel for your dining table!

Collapsible tables

When you really don’t have the room for a table to take up any floor space, you could try a collapsible table. These fold out from the wall to give you a dining area in a snap. You might be thinking that collapsible tables don’t look very attractive when they’re folded up, but fear not, for there are several impressive designs out there! Take this one, for example, where you can turn a large picture and frame into your dining table.

Hang everything

Your floor space is valuable and must be reserved for the really important stuff. Our advice? Anything that doesn’t need to be on the floor could be hung from the walls or ceilings. Sorry, chairs, you’ll be needed on the floor, but end tables, lamps, plants, or bookshelves can all be strung up, leaving you with more space for essential dining furniture.

Room for booth

While the roundtable and banquette is a great idea for a small space, if you have the right area for it, you could try to create your own booth with two banquettes instead of one. If you can fit both banquettes in, a booth can make for a very cosy dining area. To be really efficient with your space, try using seats that double as storage options.

The benchmark

For our last tip, we’re going a little bit simpler, but nonetheless effective: get a bench. Especially helpful if you have kids, a bench offers seating to several people at roughly a third of the space if each of those people had a chair. They’re also very easy to pack away or tuck under the table, so they won’t become clutter outside of meal times.

Those are some Coreco tips for making the most out of your small dining area. Did we miss any good ones? We’d love to hear from you and welcome any advice you have for making a house a home! Go to our contact page and let us know!

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