Setting the Table
The only dishes I know how to prepare are cereal with milk and chicken noodle soup from the can, so I often take on table setting and dishwashing duty as my contribution to the kitchen. These are just a few inspiring tables, from styled product shots to a casually thrown together table where we made do with what we had in a rental house.
How do you feel about printed china? I love it as a work of art, like in the first image, but I really don't want to muck up an artful plate with globs of sweet potatos or gravy. Thus, I usually opt for Plain Jane white china, clear glass, or solid Fiestaware. I tend to leave the lovely printed plates out as an accessory or hang them on the wall.
Candlelight and flowers add charm to the simplest of table settings. If you have those two elements, you really cannot go wrong. If you don't, count on dimmed light from overhead fixtures, and make do with empty vases or even common objects like wine bottles for your centerpieces.
How do you feel about printed china? I love it as a work of art, like in the first image, but I really don't want to muck up an artful plate with globs of sweet potatos or gravy. Thus, I usually opt for Plain Jane white china, clear glass, or solid Fiestaware. I tend to leave the lovely printed plates out as an accessory or hang them on the wall.
Candlelight and flowers add charm to the simplest of table settings. If you have those two elements, you really cannot go wrong. If you don't, count on dimmed light from overhead fixtures, and make do with empty vases or even common objects like wine bottles for your centerpieces.
These plates are just so interesting I had to include the shot. Again, I'd be reluctant to see them "gravy-ed." (gravied?) I think I'm making up a new word here. How should I spell it?
Somebody really thought this one through! I love that they used birch logs as trivets, and the flowers make the whole composition sunny.
If I had that tile to look at, I would sit at the bar for every meal. I like the way this person has played off the squares in the vase, plate and placemat shapes.
Minimal and functional. You can't really beat a bottle of wine as a centerpiece.
I'm a sucker for bright and bold, especially with a Scandanavian/Marimekko inspired look. They even matched the napkins to the light fixture.
This is a table my girls and I threw together in Tuscany last week. Pardon the paper towel napkins and haphazard placement; I just wanted to show off the colors, and show you that the casual picnic tablecloth really works here...when in Rome...Lord this picture is making me hungry!
Simple and traditional. Because everything is neutral and solid, the lovely plates stand out.
A dimmed chandelier can always serve as candlelight in a pinch. I like that this table has different chairs on the ends. It keeps things from getting too matchy-matchy.
A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm pretty speechless when it comes to trying to describe this one - it's turned my expectations on their heads - black wine glasses and walls, white furniture, yellow glass art hanging...YOWZAH!
The talented people at Dwell Studio do such a phenomenal styling job with their products that I could not narrow my favorites down to less than three, so this photo and the two that follow are all from there.
Note that the napkins are all different, keeping the table from looking too perfect or contrived.
This table is so nicely balanced without being perfectly symmetrical. The eye is drawn to the fun grouping of vases and figurines that line the middle of the table.