When your home has a dedicated dining room, and you live a casual lifestyle, it can feel detached, like a lost room of sorts. So how can you make your dining room look more integrated with the rest of your home? One option is simply to repurpose your dining room for an entirely different function—as a library or a family game room, for example. You can check out a video I made about that here. But if you’re just looking for ways to make your dining room feel less stiff and intimidating, the answer might be to soften the wall space.
Dining rooms often have full, blank walls intended for big china hutches to display your wedding presents. When you don’t have the wares to put such a wall to use, what do you do with it? Here are some ideas for casual wall decor that can help make your dining room more inviting.
1. Fiber Art
“Fiber art” is a recent umbrella term that covers all kinds of styles. It can mean something formal, like a tapestry or a silk dupatta. But it can also mean informal pieces, like the quilt your grandmother made, or a handmade macramé piece. The great thing about a quilt is that it can easily fill a huge wall space, so you won’t have to pair it with anything else! Another benefit of fiber art pieces is that they absorb sound. Formal dining rooms can be echoey if you don’t have carpet or a rug, so a big fabric piece can help reduce unwanted reverberation.
2. Hanging Planters
If you have a green thumb and your dining room gets good daylight, consider hanging planters on or near your wall. Most plants help a room feel relaxed by their calming nature. Keep in mind that any room-sized wall will probably need about eight or nine hanging planters to look intentional, rather than feeling like an afterthought. This article from Country Living recommends using plants like English Ivy, Bird’s Nest Fern, String of Hearts, and Donkey’s Tail. While I don’t have a green thumb and therefore can’t offer specific advice on plant care, I do recommend making your wall a wipeable surface for easier maintenance. You can use vinyl wallpaper, contact paper, or a cleanable paint.
3. A Wicker Basket Collection
Is it just me, or is it easy to collect wicker baskets? It seems like they come into my life regularly via gift baskets of some kind or another. If you have wicker baskets that aren’t in use, you might make a gallery wall hanging with them in your dining room. You can hang them facing out or facing the wall, or try a mix of both. Wicker baskets are typically easy to work with, since their colors are often earth tones that match everything. They also give your flat wall dimension and the room more interest as a whole.
4. Stringed Photographs
This is definitely a trend, but it’s an easy and relatively inexpensive one to jump on. I recommend mounting your strings of photographs on a board to float them off the wall. If the board is stained or painted a color that contrasts with the wall, your photos will have more presence. You can use selfies, pet photos, and goofy faces or group poses to make your collage fun and interesting. For more ideas and inspiration, try a Pinterest or Google Images search.
5. Floating Shelves
Weren’t we just talking about a trend? Floating shelves are yet another trend you can make use of to tone down the formality of a dining room. To capitalize on this idea, you should mount the shelves in a non-symmetrical, irregular arrangement. Before you get out the power tools and start making holes, however, I recommend trying out a mockup, using some thick painters tape on the wall, to see if you like the arrangement. Also, check the height of the accessories you plan to place on each shelf so they don’t run into the shelf above. To keep the informal style going, mix up your accessories. A natural dining room decor idea is to display decorative plates on wire plate stands, but you can also lean some of your small framed or canvas art pieces, stack or turn out books, and add knickknacks or small plants. Bonus tip: You can make floating shelves even more informal with the crate shelves trend. (See my video on floating shelf arranging here.)
6. Big Signs
Have you ever looked at a big sign in an antique store and thought, “That’s so cool, but what would I do with it?” If you want an informal dining room look, this might be your answer! Antique stores regularly carry old road signs, business signs, and very apropos restaurant signs. You might even find an electric bulb or neon sign. Nothing could be more informal than “Eat Here” hanging on your dining room wall! Another reason I like this idea is that big signs are an instant focal point. A lot of art choices DIY decorators make are on the timid side, both in terms of size and color. A road sign would be a bold statement piece in your room.
7. Framed Children’s Art
If you have a collection of your kids’ art—or even your own from childhood—you can put it to use to de-formalize your dining room. While the standard display space for children’s art is the refrigerator, you can up the game with inexpensive matched frames from a discount store. Depending on the size of the art, you can fill the frame or float the art in the middle. Since children’s art is usually handled roughly during production, you could fold under sections to display only the most interesting parts, if you want.
8. A Country Peg Rail with Accessories
Shaker style (see this article from The Spruce for a brief overview) was known for utilitarian home decor. Tools used in the home were stored on the wall, displayed out in the open. A peg rail makes an easy place to hang informal accessories. Need some ideas? How about an antique broom, antique dust pan, iron or copper skillets or tubs, dried flowers, or a lantern? Building on previous ideas in this article, you could try hanging a blanket or hanging planters. If you happen to have a Shaker style dining set with a few extra chairs, it would be completely appropriate to hang one or two of them on the peg strip as well.
Bonus Idea: Anything Unexpected
Lots of unexpected art ideas can be used to help your dining room feel less formal. Here are some additional options:
- Vinyl records or framed vinyl record covers
- A collection of masks
- Upcycled art pieces such as papier-mâché, tramp art, or diorama
- Antique hardcover books mounted to a board, or even directly to the wall. (I’ve seen this done with books open or closed.)
Try This at Home!
I hope this gave you some ideas to try in your own dining rooms. You can find more ideas for casual rooms in my article What Makes a Casual Room? Have more questions? Leave me a comment below and let’s talk about it!