What makes a dining room eye-catching? If you're in the process of remodeling or designing your kitchen or dining room, this expert advice from architect Cass Calder Smith of CSS Architects in San Francisco is good to keep in mind:
He tells The Wall Street Journal about the crucial details he always keeps in mind when designing a residential dining room. Here are a few key points:
1. Have One Main Eye-Catching Element: Think a built-in bar, a fireplace, a beautiful view, or a large piece of art. "I don't think it should overtake the room but there should be something that makes you think it's a destination." Keep the rest of the space clean and simple.
2. Enable a View of the Open Kitchen: "Formal, closed-off dining rooms feel like relics," Smith says. To make the open kitchen look "less like a kitchen" Mr. Smith advices focusing on the cooking area and blending the colors, finishes and cabinetry with the dining room décor.
3. Embrace the Farm-to-Table Trend: The key element needed is "an eye-catching large table made of wood," more rustic than polished. Reclaimed lumber, exposed steel, and earthy colors are also recommended.
4. Avoid Chairs That Are Too Formal: This means avoiding chairs that are "really high-backed or too upholstered." Putting a large grouping of these chairs together ends up looking "medieval."
5. Get the Right Lighting: Mr. Smith avoids chandeliers as being "too trendy." Instead he combines an indirect light source that "bounces off the ceilings and walls and creates a glow" with second small spotlights "aimed at highlighting the food on the table."
What do you think of these recommendations? Have any you disagree with, or would add to the list?
Read All of His Expert Recommendations: Creating a Dining Room with Wow Factor | The Wall Street Journal
Related: The Right Height for Dining Room Lighting
(Image: Faith Durand)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
TW Salt Mill by Wil...
The Ultimate Used Furniture Cleaning Kit
Ana Creates a Community at Home
I don't know about the too formal/upholstered chairs bit. I have two sets of chairs. One set's small, Louis chairs with arms, comfortable enough for dining (enough for 8 guests). The other set are wing chairs and for an intimate dinner there's nothing better than having comfy upholstery to sit in all evening as we dine and talk around the table (enough for 4 guests). I live in a small house, just 950 square feet, so it's not about having oodles of storage space for different seating types.
From an architect, I expect more long-term than trendy ideas. #2-4 are Dining Rooms 2012, rather than Dining Rooms for the Ages. #5, light that "bounces off the ceilings and walls and creates a glow" is more like a kitchen than an intimate dining space.
I think simplicity with a focal point and comfortable chairs are good ideas, but the other suggestions don't resonate with me at all. I (unfashionably) like a separate kitchen, though I don't think the dining area has to be closed off. I love a beaten-up antique table, but one made out of reclaimed wood and rustic metal seems so fake to me (think Restoration Hardware). Chandeliers are trendy? Tell Louis XIV. And without one, where is your Pattern Language pool of light?
I don't get the open kitchen thing, though I do like a dining area that is open to the living space. Considering the mess I make when I prepare a meal, it's nice to not have to look at it or stink up the rest of the living spaces with bacon-ness on a weekend.
Reading between the lines, I'm not certain the architect who offered this advice can design outside of his own taste preferences and is therefore probably not very good. Albeit popular.