We reconnected with old friends over dinner last night and I had the rare chance to photograph the table setting before they arrived. Putting together a beautiful table is my favorite part of hosting, and I love mixing and matching from my collection of dishes to create a new look each time to compliment the season and menu. This table setting would work beautifully for Mother’s Day brunch, summer dinner parties, and beyond!
Our living room and dining room are connected through a double wide doorway, and I love how this table echos our living room’s color scheme with lots of greens, blues and white, and a little bit of red thrown in. Our dining room is still very “undone” – I haven’t hung anything on the walls, and our current chairs are well made but perhaps better suited for a breakfast nook so they’re placeholder until we take the plunge and invest in custom upholstered Louis XVI chairs. (Hopefully soon!) It’s a process!
The simplicity of the room’s decor means I can go all out with the table setting, layering lots of pattern and textures. I’m very happy that Indian block printed linens are coming back in style as they remind me of my Bangalore apartment when I lived in India from 2010-2011. (My home was full of block prints – to a fault!) I recently picked up this tablecloth and set of napkins from Pottery Barn and love its muted pattern in blues and greens. (The colors look much brighter online than they do in person.) The print picks up the green of the celadon dishes (similar here) we picked up as souvenirs from Thailand on our world trip as well as the blue from my much loved wedding china by Royal Copenhagen.
Repetition and variation are key to creating visual harmony in a space and I love mixing high and low pieces to create a table that is personal and cozy. For repetition I pulled in multiple woven items in my chargers (similar), dinner plates, napkin rings and water glasses each in varying patterns, as well as silver repeated in the tulip cup that holds wildflowers and my vintage silverware (the pattern is called “Danish Princess”) and of course the blue and white in the linens and salad plates. Together they create a wonderful, special but not at all stuffy table that you can gather around for Mother’s Day and beyond!
