As families and friends gather for the holiday, dining rooms across the country will soon take their turn as lively centers of the home, animated by conversation and brimming with traditional Thanksgiving dishes. In honor of the occasion, we looked back on past issues of Design STL for ideas on how to dine in style. From minimalist and modern, to colorful and cozy, the following rooms are ideal places to enjoy a meal in good company.
Courtesy Alise O'Brien
Designer Ken Stückenschneider draws attention to the room’s beam structure with a statement, antique Italian chandelier that draws the eye upward. The furniture is just as captivating. The Edwin Lutyens-inspired table, handcrafted from white oak, complements the surrounding white-oak paneling. Six Warren Platner chairs, upholstered in brown leather, add a touch of modernity. An area rug made of a natural, woven fiber grounds the room.
Courtesy Alise O'Brien
When Daumier Mageswki thinks back on the renovation of his LaSalle Park townhouse, he says he would never do it again. Not that he regrets it. He simply can’t fathom how he and his husband, Dallas Cup, endured it: being ghosted by contractors, sleeping on an air mattress in the dining room, cooking on a hot plate in the bathroom, and worst of all, toiling for more than a year to restore the staircase. Read the full story here.
Courtesy Alise O'Brien
With the right touches and furnishings—like the room’s scenic Vervain wallpaper, American Empire sideboard, and Victorian “crank table”—[Robert] Idol and Emily achieved that desired collected mood. The chairs, finished in an ebony paint color, evoke the feeling of having been lived in. And Emily’s collection of classic blue-and-white ginger and temple jars became the inspiration for the elegant window treatments and patterned wool rug. “I try to make all of my interiors feel layered so that it looks like maybe someone did collect the furniture over time,” says Idol. Read the full story here.
Courtesy Alise O'Brien
[Hannah Headrick] began selling furniture as part of the Rocket Century collective, then opened Confluence Modern with upholsterer Jeff Swift. The pandemic forced them to shutter last year, but before it did, Confluence helped Headrick secure some of her most beloved pieces, including two Knoll Tulip Tables by Saarinen. “The dining room table, and the two captain’s chairs, I got from an old customer at the shop,” she says. “The table didn’t have a top, so I hired a woodworker I knew through the shop to make one from reclaimed mahogany.” Read the full story here.
Courtesy April Jensen
In the dining room, the use of vibrant color plays out in shades of green, warm wood tones, and a pop of fuchsia, courtesy of a painting by St. Louis artist Peter Manion. [April] Jensen bought the room’s antique angel wings at the famed Round Top Antiques Fair in Texas, rejecting her initial doubts. “I really debated those,” she says, admiring them from a gray leather chair in the living room. “They could have gone wrong really easily.” But there was something about the way they were so simply displayed that Jensen just loved and couldn’t pass up. In her own house, she didn’t think too long about where or how to hang them either. Today, they’re juxtaposed with a Midcentury Modern display unit styled with some of the designer’s favorite things, like the milky-white and minty-green milk glass from her treasured collection. “I love that something as simple as a butter dish, or a vase, is so incredibly beautiful,” she says. Read the full story here.
Courtesy Alise O'Brien
“It’s not a decorated house,” [Brian] Smith says, just a space filled with objects they both love, added over time. That includes a classic Charles Eames lounger and three Eames rosewood screens, placed in corners, Smith says, “as segueways to soften the architecture a little bit.” There’s a table designed by acclaimed Modernist architect Isadore Shank, with a found base and a tabletop made of seamlessly laid marble tiles; a 16th-century captain’s table; a Christian Liaigre dining room table; a massive wooden hutch from rural Missouri. “It was made in the mid-1800s—the fasteners are all pre-industrial,” Moynihan says. “It’s almost Shaker in design, so it goes well with the contemporary pieces.” Read the full story here
Courtesy Alise O'Brien
In the dining room, nearly two dozen Fortuny lamps hang in a random arrangement from the coffered ceiling. “I’d been collecting these lamps for a long time, not knowing what I would do with them,” the homeowner explains. “When we got this house, I spent two days with this amazing electrician to painstakingly place these asymmetrically and off-center.” Read the full story here.
