Your Dining Room: How to Host Better Family Dinners

Create a cozy and inviting atmosphere in your dining room to make your family dinners extra special!

Your evening meal is about more than just giving your body the sustenance it needs. It also provides an opportunity to get together with your family, discuss your days, and all-around spend quality time as a tribe. 

In fact, that aspect of dinnertime is even more important than the food component. You could quickly feed yourself in a few minutes, but that’ll be nowhere near as valuable as spending an hour or so catching up with your loved ones.

To get the full benefits of your evening meals, you’ll need to have a great dining room. In this post, we’ll run through a few handy tips that’ll allow you to put together a dining room that nudges you towards having excellent family dinners, every single night.

Create a Cozy Environment

Creating a cozy, inviting dining environment helps to set the tone for the meal. It’ll let everyone in your family know that this isn’t just about eating food; it’s about spending time together! There are a few ways to do this, but one non-negotiable aspect is ensuring that the lighting is on point. Low, soft lighting will allow you to create a restaurant-worthy atmosphere that encourages everyone to sink into a relaxed state that allows conversation to flow.

Make it Comfortable

Of course, while creating a nice atmosphere is a good starting point, it’ll count for little if you and your family aren’t comfortable while dining! The best family dinners are the ones that are slow and drawn out, but that won’t happen if everyone grows uncomfortable after twenty minutes of sitting down. The solution? Work on boosting your dining room’s comfort credentials. Consider investing in a swivel dining room chair, one for every member of the family, or you could add cushions to your existing dining room furniture. Also, think about the temperature of the room — no one will want to linger at the table if it’s freezing during the winter months!

And Spacious

Like most rooms, you’ll get more from your dining room if it’s spacious and clutter-free. Having too many items in a room — especially if it’s a standalone room rather than an open-plan space — can make the space feel a little claustrophobic, which is not the kind of energy you’ll be looking to create! Investing in smart storage solutions or simply removing excess items from your dining room can help. 

Decorate With Seasonal Touches

Looking for an easy way to improve the look of your dining room? Add some seasonal decorative touches. Florals and branches can really make the space — and the evening — extra special. 

Set Up a Drinks Bar

Adding a drinks bar won’t make a difference to those standard family dinners that only involve you, your partner, and your kids. But when you have extended friends and family around for dinner? At that point, a drinks bar can be a classy touch that really helps to take the evening to the next level. Learn how to mix a few classic cocktails, and your loved ones will be delighted.