Take one dining table
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”
