Overview
Dinner for six in a room for four
A classic six building with an un-classic problem: a dining room 2.4 metres wide that the family used as a corridor with chairs. Sunday lunches meant elbows, apologies and a table nobody could walk around.
We kept the footprint and changed the geometry — a round oak table that seats six without corners, dining chairs that tuck fully beneath it, and ivory lime plaster that bounces the single window’s light into every corner.
Approach
One light, hung low
Small dining rooms fail at ceiling height: a pendant hung high lights the walls and leaves faces in shadow. Our arc lamp pools light exactly where the food lands, on a dimmer that drops from homework-bright to candle-soft.
A full-height mirror, antiqued so it reads as texture rather than trick, doubles the window. The rug is flat-weave wool — chairs glide, crumbs surrender.
Details
- Ivory lime plaster on three walls for soft reflected light
- 120cm round oak table with fully tucking chairs
- Antiqued full-height mirror doubling the window
“Twelve people at Thanksgiving. Nobody moved the table. Nobody believed it.”
— The clients, Upper West Side
