Formal Dining Room Interior Designer Ideas To Transform Your Space

This gallery showcases beautiful formal dining room ideas and tips to transform your own designs. A formal dining room is a great place for entertaining and should convey the feeling of elegance and sophistication for family and friends. Below, you’ll find creative ways top interior designers decorate this formal room, as well as popular furniture ideas and tips for room layouts. Dining rooms are generally meant to serve as the place where meals are to be had and for friends and family to gather and share some time together. Being used for such important purposes, its design is paramount to creating a good home.

Formal Dining Room Designs

Here are some design tips to consider when planning out your home’s formal dining room ideas.

1. Less is More – As the late Bruce Lee once said, “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” A mark of a good designer is their inclination to do subtractive design instead of additive. This includes creating efficient yet bold layouts with rectilinear shapes and making sure to make classy and discreet material choices.

Start with a concrete idea of what you want the dining room to be at the end of the design process. At this point, be as wild and imaginative as you can. And then, like carving a masterpiece out of a block of wood, slowly chip away the ideas that don’t go well with the overall theme you are trying to pull. Keep refining and simplifying until you are left with a design that will make seasoned interior designers proud.

2. Honesty is the Best Policy – A common aspect of architectural design that the most critical designers look out for is a space’s sincerity. A lot of commercial fads in construction make it such that materials are easily replicated and installed for the cheap, but what you will want to go for is timelessness. Go for natural materials or as natural as you can get them; try to avoid cheap “faux” materials that most stores would love to sell you.

In the end, when materials eventually experience wear and tear and need to be replaced, any of these “fad” materials will long be replaced by newer materials. Meanwhile, the natural stone or clay or marble that you could have used will stay the same no matter how long it’s been since first construction.

3. Design is Emotional – Consider that the dining room will be the one space in the house you’ll probably be dealing with at least once a day, every day. For most of us, the dining room is also where we start our day, being where we eat breakfast. As such, it is equally important with a formal design that how you feel within the space lifts you up and is an inviting and attractive place for you and your guests.

Essentially, the purpose of space design is functionality, yes, but it is as much emotional as it is physical. One may argue that décor and aesthetic choices don’t have a physical “function,” but if they trigger emotional responses and make you want to function in a space more, is that not a function in itself?

The contemporary dining room above has a sublime and bold design and arrangement. The gray texture wallpaper used creates a stylish complement to the classy silk upholstered chairs, the sleek and polished table, and the crystal chandelier in the middle of the space. The overall style makes this floor plan bright and airy.

Class and style are seen here with hints of contemporary aesthetics. The elegant gray palette of this dining room is topped off with intricate wainscoting and crown moldings. Other nice finishing touches are the stylish beige chairs, the glass chandelier, and the framed mirrors on the walls that make the area even brighter.

This particular example has a more traditional look to it and employs an open layout, sharing its space with the adjacent kitchen. The use of French doors really opens up the space, while the large built-in cabinet provides plenty of storage for the owner’s collection of fine porcelain. Smart use of a coffered ceiling and industrial chandelier rounds out the room’s aesthetic quite well.

The use of earth tones as well as natural, organic décor and mantle pieces really make for a homey and cozy vibe for this designed space. Materials such as rough texture lumber used on the dining table and console as well as the teak wooden floor boards, are smart choices for this room.

Exposed wooden rafters and wooden beams are great for creating roomy Mediterranean spaces such as this one. The natural texture of the wood goes well with the clay floor tiles. A seemingly contradicting traditionally styled dining table set and glass chandelier surprisingly go well with the whole aesthetic and create a classical luxury vibe in the space. Dining rooms with French doors bring in an extra sense of ambiance and beauty as shown here.

Smaller spaces such as this one, when laid out and styled intelligently, can still be made to be good examples of dining room design. This coastal style room employs wooden floorboards, bleached lumber, and wood for the dining table and chairs, as well as carved wood for the side tables. A navy color palette of white wainscoting and molding on blue wallpaper also really sets the tone for the space.

A modern take on stylish urban living, this formal dining room uses full-length floor to ceiling glass windows to provide amazing city views. A large solid surface dining table graces the floor, along with white leather chairs, a stylish hung art piece, and beautiful modern chandeliers. The dark wood flooring is also a good contrast to the white of the room.

The long wood dining table and corresponding dining chairs are made of richly colored hardwood, and both go well with the dark maroon area rug and the other furnishings in this elegant formal design. The hardwood floors match the beige colors of the walls and ceiling with white highlights seen on the moldings and the fireplace.

The classy wooden dining table finds a good match with the leather and velvet upholstered dining chairs surrounding it; the Persian area rug, wrought iron candle holders and wooden side console all match the aesthetic of the room. The clay floor tiles, white fireplace and mantle, and exposed wooden beams of the ceiling really create a sophisticated and rich ambiance in this formal space.

This square glass table pairs perfectly with the black and gold dining chairs that surround it. The geometric area rug, black wooden dresser, and choice of tabletop décor are also nice touches. A small bar is situated just outside the dining area and is equipped with a wine refrigerator and wine storage cabinet.

A golden glow almost emanates from this luxury formal dining room design. The wooden table, upholstered brown chairs, and the arranged golden tabletop décor match the area rug, wood plank flooring, beige walls, and golden tray ceiling. The hanging chandelier tops it all off with its warm lighting. Visit our gallery featuring lighting ideas for a dining space to see a variety of light fixtures and styles.

A quainter example of a two-tone dining room design. The oval solid wood dining table is matched by the golden micro suede upholstered chairs. A subtle olive tone is painted onto the walls, which matches the dark brown floorboards and the white ceiling and moldings.

The open plan of this luxury dining room keeps the space bright and undeniably roomy. The polished marble flooring, white walls and numerous surrounding floor to ceiling windows, and brightly lit tray ceiling also all help with keeping the area feeling spacious. The choice of a long dark wood table and faux alligator skin upholstered chairs are also nice touches.

Wood parquet flooring, ribbon grain wood veneer walls, and a ceiling adorned with two crystal chandelier are only the few design elements that make this design an amazing example of luxury formal design. The furniture used is made of richly stained and polished oak, further enhancing the stylish ambiance of the space.

This Mediterranean style formal dining room employs a sophisticated set of hardwood furniture in the form of the seven seater table set and the side console at the left of the layout. The limestone flooring matches the arched recessed walls and the tray ceiling with its wrought iron chandelier.

Cream micro suede chairs such as the ones used in this example go extremely well with dark solid wood tables. The cream marble tile flooring, along with the white walls really create a brightness in the room that’s almost palpable. This type of material treatment really makes a room feel spacious and uplifting.

Formal dining room ideas with an open floor plan can benefit by being very accommodating to entertaining guests. Not only does this space enjoy an abundance of natural light, but it also has a beautiful view of the outdoor patio and beyond. This contemporary design has a blue-and-white color palette that really makes the design pop. The dark wood stain on the floorboards makes for a good contrast to the navy color theme and goes well with the dark wood dining table and beige chairs.

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