This time of year the dining room takes center stage. This is where you will laugh, listen and love with family and friends (any possibly cry, cringe or collapse--but let's not think about that). Dining rooms may have become swallowed up by the "open-style" kitchen or the "Great Room" but carving out a special place to linger over a meal (even if the four walls are no longer there) is an important part of the holiday season. With any luck, nothing will be thrown and everyone will listen patiently and calmly to each other and enjoy a spectacular meal!
Of course, dining rooms don't just exist for the Super Bowls of meals (Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, etc). It is around the table that some of the most memorable scenes of your life are likely to unfold. Why not make the setting beautiful?
FIRST ROW
• 1 Furniture Focus: Rectangular Dining Room Tables.
• 2 Glamorous Dining Rooms From Our House Tours.
• 3 Keeping It Simple: Minimalist DIning Rooms.
• 4 Ideas For Creating a Cozy Dining Space.
• 5 Eclectic Dining Rooms From Our House Tours.
SECOND ROW
• 6 Dining Room Storage Pieces From Our House Tours.
• 7 Creating a Dining Atmosphere: A Roundup of Modern DIning Rooms.
• 8 Cozy Dining Rooms From Our Tours.
• 9 Inspired to Entertain: 10 Modern, Airy Dining Rooms.
• 10 Gathering Around The DIning Table
Images: See linked posts for full image credits
The Ultimate Used Furniture Cleaning Kit
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Z2 iPod Dock and Wi...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
These are all very beautiful, but I can't imagine having an arching lamp hanging over the table. Seems like an awkward position for lighting. I think I'd put candles on the table and rely on ambient lighting from a corner lamp.
The first pic is my fave.
I love the first picture as well.
Ditto on the arching lamp over the table. It would be better, IMHO, if the arch was bigger (higher). Either the folks living there are midgets but it would bother that I cannot pass under the arch without bending down.
Picture # 5 - the sige of the rug seriously irritates me. I could not live with it. The rug should be large enough so that the chairs have all the legs on the rug even when pulled off the table.
I don't know. Some of these are pretty, but hardly any of them seems like one that I'd like to "live in." They look more like places where I'd be afraid of accidentally knocking something over. #10 is less stylized than most of the others, but definitely looks like a place where people could sit comfortably, drink, and talk for a long time.