The Outdated Dining Room Trend Slowly Disappearing From Our Homes

Matching dining room sets are overrated. While it might initially seem counterproductive, employing a mix of furniture styles — think mid-century chairs paired with an industrial-style table — can turn a humdrum dining room into a design-savvy setup in no time. To show you just what we mean, we’ve rounded up some of the coolest dining rooms with mismatched furniture from our house tours, and we think they’ll prove our point. Here are seven spaces that will make you rethink your coordinating dining set.

Searching for a sleek way to modernize a rustic dining table? Opt for a set of contemporary chairs, like the rainbow-colored assortment we spotted in Faye and Dave Campbell’s Surrey, United Kingdom home, to update the space in seconds.

Your eat-in kitchen is ripe with design potential, it just takes a little planning. Pair a few quirky, mismatched chairs with a petite dining table to score a hip breakfast nook inside your kitchen, just like we saw in Helen Levi’s Brooklyn abode.

A little color goes a long way when it comes to a matching dining room set. Case in point: Catherine Ashton’s Northwest London, England dining room, where she employed a chic mid-century modern table set with three differently colored chairs to shake things up without overwhelming the small space.

Nothing updates an antique dining table like a couple of ultra-modern chairs. Take a cue from Kohn and Liz Tavarez and add an eye-catching chair or two to offset a dated dining table, like the ghost chairs they used in their Phoenix, Arizona home.

If you’re a fan of a certain furniture style but can’t decide which dining set to choose, then we have the solution for you. Instead of investing in one coordinating dining set, try buying different pieces from the same period — like the mismatched mid-century modern dining chairs we spotted in Marie-Claude and Martin’s Montréal, Québec home — to make a statement.

Dreaming of switching things up in your Scandi-style dining room but don’t want to stray from the monochrome color palette? Bring a few different neutral-toned dining chairs to your table to revamp the space without sacrificing the minimalist vibes, just like we saw in Bonnie Rasmussen and Russell Patmore’s Surrey, United Kingdom home.

When all else fails, you can always count on a patterned rug to pull a mismatched dining room together. Whether you opt for a variety of eye-catching side chairs or a bright green bench like we saw in the Denbow Family’s Colorado Springs, Colorado home, employ a vibrant rug to draw the colors of the room together in a pinch.