Up-cycling interior design ideas for your dining-room

It's probably true to say that dining rooms, along with spare bedrooms, are magnets for clutter. This is especially true if you only use your dining room for eating on high days and holidays. Today we're being encouraged to eat more healthily, spend time enjoying our food in the company of family and friends. To this end a dining-room can quite easily be bought back into functional use with just a few alterations to soft furnishings and furniture. Take a Systematic Approach If the thought of getting your dining-room sends cold shivers down your spine it's wise to take a systematic approach to achieve the best end results. De-cluttering is the first priority. Once you've cleared the room you'll find you have a surprising amount of space, even in the smallest of dining-rooms. Go Neutral Irrespective of your existing colour scheme going neutral with your soft furnishings means that the colours will blend together easily. You can leave painting and wallpapering for a later date when you have more spare cash. Seat pads and table linen are quick ways to bring a new look to your dining room table and chairs. You could also make chair cover slips using cheap curtain fabric; like cushion covers they'll slip over your chairs giving them a modern look and you can add a fancy bow or hang tie-back tassels to give them a bespoke and unique style. Creature Comforts We're creatures of habit and we don't like making compromises unless we absolutely have to. It's easy to add comfort for your feet and give your dining-room a new look simply by adding cheap rugs. A large area rug is ideal for placing under the table and while this may seem pointless, as the table and chairs will be masking most of it from view, it's an affordable way to bring style into your dining-room. The rug can also help to protect flooring and carpets from nasty stains and as they're so cheap you can replace a rug whenever you need to. Accessories Keep accessories to a bare minimum so that the room doesn't become cluttered – remember you've de-cluttered once and shouldn't be refilling the room with 'new' clutter! Use items which follow a theme in keeping with the style of your room. Plants and flowers always look at home in a dining-room and give you an inexpensive way to bring new colours, visual delights and scents as the seasons change.