Take your dining table from work to play with our ANYDAY brand and make it the hardworking hub of your home
From breakfast time through the home-working hours and on to entertaining, our dining tables are the unsung heroes of our homes. But if yours has become a magnet for clutter and mismatched tableware, shop our ANYDAY brand for key pieces and give it the love it deserves.
‘If you’re tight on space, then invest in a surface that can function as a work desk in the day, then transition to dining at night,’ says Wil Law (@johnlewis_wil), Partner & Home Design Stylist.
Our ANYDAY Anton dining table is a brilliant dining-room centrepiece. Constructed from high-quality oak veneer and plywood, with a lacquered coating for extra durability it also has some great design features, such as splayed, on-trend painted legs. The curved lines make it a great buy for a tight space, but it also extends to sit up to eight comfortably. ‘So much furniture is square and you can get stuck quite quickly designing with a series of angles,’ says Partner & Home Design Stylist Bethan Harwood (@johnlewis_bethan). ‘Besides, no one likes to be the person stuck at a corner when you’re gathering for drinks or a meal.’
Team your dining table with a bench, great for squishing extra people on and for giving you the opportunity to add colour and personality with a few cushions, creating a casual seating area. Around your table, mix and match our popular ANYDAY Whistler chairs in mustard, dusty grey, white, evergreen and burnt orange.
Try putting a rug under your dining table to help define the area. Choose a textured design with a pattern – it’ll help hide the crumbs until you next get the vacuum cleaner out.
Start the day off with a moment of calm. Breakfast is all about preparing for the day ahead. Enjoy your favourite granola in a bowl that’s just made for holding, savour a second (or third) cup of coffee from a cafetiere and boost your vitamin count with a glass of fresh juice.
Style your breakfast table with a few houseplants – they are easy to move out of the way when it’s time for work. Try and enjoy breakfast in a different seat to where you’ll later set up for work – it’s a small change, but one that will help separate the two activities.
“Choose bold colours for your breakfast tableware – sky blue, sunny yellow and warm orange are all feel-good pops that will brighten up any day”
Swap a dining chair for a height-adjustable desk chair, choosing a design that won’t feel at odds with your dining space when entertaining. Position your workspace where you can look into another room or enjoy a view from the window.
If your dining table is always buried under piles of paperwork, then a storage box or two will keep papers neat and make it easy to tidy away once you’ve logged off at the end of the day. Use a second box to keep chargers and cables together – and plan where you can charge your laptop during your working day.
“I always recommend pairing a table and a cabinet so there is somewhere for work stuff to go at the end of the day – you don’t want to be eating dinner sat next to your laptop”
In the evening, the lighting around and above your dining table becomes key. Choose a pendant above to cast a soft glow that’s perfect for entertaining, while mood lighting – in the form of a table and floor lamp – is ideal for creating pockets of warmth in the space. Dress your table with colourful placemats – they are a less formal choice than tablelinen and perfect for a casual supper with friends. Mix and match tableware, adding colour pops to a basic blue set and coloured glassware to catch the light.
“Low-level lighting, such as a floor lamp near the dining table, will give a diffused, restful glow that can be supplemented by tealights and dinner candles”