Eight Tricks To Make Your Dining Room Look More Expensive
If a house is a meal, then you may consider the dining room to be the main course. After all, it’s the area where we most often receive formal guests. If the lounge room is the entree—the appetiser that sets the flavour of any domestic aesthetic—then the dining room can only build on this experience. Due to the growing popularity of open-plan dwellings, guests will often sample this architectural main course from the lounge room—which is all the more reason to flavour it up with the highest-quality seasonings. Here are eight ways to create the illusion of an expensive dining room—all for very little cost.
Table of Contents
Choose Your Colours
Sometimes colour can make or break an aesthetic. Paint—a fairly inexpensive coating—can take the edge off that industrial feeling inherent to white, unadorned walls. It doesn’t need to be blatant. In fact, an untainted wall can sometimes be preferable to a wall of hot pink, which can be the visual equivalent of shouting. A subtle, soft mauve—or anything on a pastel palette, really—can give a room that #filterfeeling #irl.
If Walls Could Talk…
…they would make some serious statements. Give your walls a voice by decorating them with wallpaper or your own original hand-painted designs. If you have an artistic itch to scratch, you may enjoy the low-budget option of coating your walls in simple and even patterns. If you’d rather leave the patterns to the experts, you may opt for some wallpaper with an impressive contemporary aesthetic.
Artistic Finishes
Complement your wall design (be it patterned or a solid block of colour) with an artistic finish. When you’re going for an expensive vibe, it’s best to save those family portraits for a different space. De-personalise your dining room with neutral or complementary artwork that ultimately draws attention to the table. For an ergonomic experience, hang the art further down the wall—to meet the natural eye gaze of somebody sitting down.
Shed Some Light on the Subject
Lighting has made a real resurgence recently. From the design of the exterior to the brightness intensity, lighting is used to make a statement—and who’s to say you can’t make the statement of a chandelier with a patterned Kmart lamp? For an intimate dining experience, simply select low-hanging lighting fixtures in a mid-range size.
Raise the Roof
Many high-end dwellings are built taller than your average house. Make your dining room appear taller than it is by hanging your curtains high and wide. When installing a curtain rod, reach for the sky—or, at least, closer to the ceiling than the windowpane. This will create the illusion of a taller dining room—and, by literal extension, a more expensive one.
Throw in an Accent Rug…
…not to be confused with a throw rug. A strategically placed rug could be that splash of (patterned) colour that grounds your attention to your dining room’s main feature: the table. This trick is suitable for dining rooms with polished floorboards, tiling, or short-cropped carpet.
Flora and Fauna
A fairly simple way to beautify a room is by adding a floral arrangement. Indoor houseplants are also a growing trend (literally). If you have a garden, this natural addition of flora or fauna may not cost a penny. Otherwise, you can purchase fairly inexpensive flowers from a florist. If making a homemade arrangement, remember the statement you’re trying to make and arrange the flowers accordingly.
Less is More
Ironically, when making a room appear expensive, it pays (or doesn’t) to embrace minimalism. Trade in your collection of low-quality trinkets for a few high-quality pieces that provide subtle nuance to the statement you’re trying to make. The same rule applies to your possessions. Overstuffed bookshelves or even stray items (such as piles of newspapers) can subtract from the elegant stylistic choice you have made. Make like Marie Kondo and remove the items that do not ‘bring you joy’. Declutter your dining room; declutter your mind.
