Same as Pal. It's where my purse lives, plus my laptop, choir music folder, papers du jour. I have an office with a desk, but my dining table is where the action is.

A half-played game of Risk and a mountain of robotic Legos...

Since it's just me, I only use the dining room table when I entertain. The rest of the time it's a work center as well. Right now it's piled with papers!

18 months after moving in, I still don't have my office set up properly - it's more for storage of supplies and paperwork at the moment, plus all my books. The dining room table is also where MY action is :-))

DH's protein drinks always. Then it becomes the work station during tax season.

I leave mine clear lots of the time because I have lamps and something decorative on the sideboard, plus the main sight line across the table shows a large painting, so there's no need for a decorative item on the table.

A tureen. At Christmas, it is filled with poinsettias (white) and greenery; at Easter, I do a flower arrangement without the tureen. The only other things that are ever on the table are two tray of "smalls" that I take off tables when my cleaning woman comes every two weeks. She would never get them back in the right place, and they are valuable and breakable. So, I put them on tray and the trays on the table until she leaves.

Papers, grocery bags and folded laundry...I need a life makeover.

Usually flowers. I try to buy a few bunches once a week and place them scattered around the house. Although at times it will house my sewing machine, serger and whatever it is I'm working on at the time.

Cats, purse, computers, things that need to go out to the workshop ... it's an ever-varying collection.

Instead of temporary clutter, I prefer to call mine a staging area!

We eat in our dining room every night. It somehow makes dinners more festive. And also ensures that the table is not a landing board for our stuff.

Usually a large bowl. Empty. :)

I have four or five beautiful bowls that I change out seasonally. I like the look and actually use the bowls when we make salads. I guess you could say I'm a function over form gal.

I have a metal tray (with handles) that holds 3 standing blown glass finials and either a small ironstone bowl with a potted plant (orchid) or a vase of fresh cut flowers. We do not use our dining room table for just the two of us, we use the table in the nook area.

Craft projects. Right now, sewing machine, sewing basket, fabric, and patterns.

Vintage console bowl with fresh fruit that hides small bits that don't have a home or aren't put away. Recovering clutterbug here.

Flowers.

A lonely vase waiting for flowers from the garden:

I keep my tea set out on the dining table when we aren't eating there. We're seldom eating there, as we usually just gravitate to the island instead.

Our dining room table is 9 1/2 feet long, so whatever I use as a centerpiece needs to be quite large so that it doesn't look lost there. We eat dinner here Sunday through Thursday evenings, and for weekend breakfasts. Because of that, and the fact that any visitors can readily see it from our front foyer, I always like to keep a nice seasonal or holiday centerpiece on our table. As it's summertime now, I have a long runner from Mexico, topped with a Talavera planter, also from Mexico.

it's pretty much the same all the time. unless we have a big party and I need to make space for more dishes..

the flowers do change of course, every week or so

(I showed it several times so apologize in advance, one must be sick of it already)

ah, and it's usually where I write from..lol..so my laptop is often there too.

I got so lazy lately I often leave this runner or whatever is called if the party's casual, and get out (easily wiped) placemats. Only when it's a holiday or something more special, I reach for a proper tablecloth

Keep this fish (gift from son) filled with a bunch of silk flowers

and lotus pods from our lotus plants...Made the tray specifically for the fish.

I used to change off the arraignment seasonally, but have gotten more

and more lazy over the years.

Usually flowers or a bowl with candles on one, a collection of stuff (often plus my iPad/writing bits) on the other. These pics were taken a while ago when we weren't getting the house ready to sell.......

I change up, typically with the seasons. I almost always have a table runner on ours because DH can't seem to resist plopping down something on it as he drives by. This is a new runner with embroidered ribbon flowers on it plus a large bread bowl with nothing in it at the moment.

My table and for the heck of it, my cowhide rug.

April, I especially like your dining chairs. I am currently working on a new dining chair design that is vaguely similar to yours. I can't post photos until it is in production, however. Since I only work part time (every other week M-Th), the prototype process is a bit slower.

Your fruit reminds me of the wax fruit that my mother used to keep on her dining table. When I was three or four, I tried to take a bite out of a wax apple and left tooth marks in it.

Not much, candlesticks and a pewter dish ...

Mine until Christmas;

Dust. No pic.

My dining room table is pretty much always used. We eat supper there every day. I have my morning coffee there. I sit there (here!) to use my laptop and to read (I prefer to sit on a non-cushioned wood chair almost always - I am not a lounger). Permanent table fixtures, except when we have company over for a meal, are a hand-crafted basket with binoculars inside, my library books, and the magazines that I can't get DH to toss into the recycle bin.

Lars, you design chairs??

I read somewhere a chair is one of the most complicated pieces to design, it's like an aeroplane, to the rest of furnishings. well of course I understand, in theory, that if chairs exist it means somebody designs them. but it's just so cool.

your story about the wax fruit suddenly reminded me of how my MIL told me how she ate banana for the first time in her life(they were very scarce where we lived, exotic really..I think I saw them two or three times altogether when I was a girl). So she takes that precious banana and bites it together with the peel. And thinks "Why everybody praise them so much?! " Lol

Mine has place mats with chargers and coasters and a tray in the center with an orchid on it. Ready to go.

A small wool rug in the middle and, like so many others, all my homework piled at one end. We had to put in the extra leaf so there was room for us to eat at the other end. Another reason to love summer is that all my school work gets put away and we can enjoy our whole dining room again.

I keep my table clear except a few tchotchke-ish things on one end. Stuff like a little ceramic bowl of matches from different places, a few tea lights or a fancy candle, a beautiful lidded ceramic bowl a friend gifted me that I keep my bad-for-you candy in. And, seasonally, a vase with different plants in it, like eucalyptus or monstera.

I have LOVED seeing all these pictures. thank you! as someone mentioned above, you see my DR when you first walk in the door. I did not pick the color, the light fixture or the furniture (I had none and PO left his for $100) There are many things on my to do list so I have not done much to the DR but try to work with it! I would love a new light fixture but am hesitant to get one when the current furniture is just not my style at all. then again - who knows how long it might be before that is a priority or I find something reasonable at a local auction.

that was a long way of getting to my point of saying I also dont' want to spend a lot on something for the center piece for the same reason, but I think it is calling out for something. I will have to keep looking around my house.

Shopping your own house can be a great way to create a centerpiece. I do it all the time . . . except in Summer when I fell crazy in love and had to buy that long planter of mine. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to do it, I'd start with a short table runner or large woven placemat. One that works with your room now (which is pretty, BTW). And then look around for one large, bulky piece. You can group 2-3 small, related pieces around it, if you feel it still needs something.

For example, when I make an India-themed dinner for us (love Butter Chicken!) , I do this: I pull the brass deer statue off our hearth and add orange and green candles to the holders I usually keep on the dining room windowsill. Granted, this is set for dinner , but it works great in the middle of my table when we're not eating.

Here's another centerpiece that I put together just shopping my house: A small framed piece of art that usually is in my living room, pine cones, candles, and an Indian statue on an old plaster Hobby Lobby stand I've had for years. The runner is a short one, but being plain colored with texture, works really well with a lot of my centerpieces. I use this a lot during the Winter months, after Christmas.

Autumn is coming and a lot of times I use these beaded pumpkins I made years ago. Again, I just group them together on a runner and add a couple of candles. I keep different colors of candles in a drawer in my dining room to use with my various candleholders. And, I buy them at HL when they're on sale, as I always try to bargain shop. The pumpkins are part of my Fall decs that I've had for years. This centerpiece didn't cost me a dime.

In other words, use what makes you happy to see. You can cheaply frame a 5x7" card with a pretty view or whatever (no words, though). Buy the frame at Walmart or HL and pop it in. Buy a small wood easel to hold it. Put it on a nice runner or placemat and flank it with two candles. If you feel like it needs something else, maybe add a statue you like from your living room that works with the framed print. You've just made yourself a new centerpiece.

Sorry, I get carried away when it comes to creating centerpieces. For me, they're a great creative outlet . . . and they're so easy. Shop your house and see what you can come up with!

April, yes, I am a furniture designer by profession, but I started out with lighting: wall sconces, floor lamps/torcheres, chandeliers. I also worked on case goods at that time. Chairs and upholstered furniture came later, but I will say that chandeliers are the most difficult and complicated. I've also done some accessories that you can put on dining tables, to get back to topic. Here's a bowl design that I worked on:

Photo in our showroom in Los Angeles. The chandelier design was taken from an Art Deco table lamp that belongs to my boss, and we turned it upside down for a chandelier, and changed the proportions. The acrylic candlesticks are an exact reproduction (except for the finish), but I do not know who did the original design. Fabric wings are in the background; I took this photo when I was doing showroom inventory. My boss does all the textiles and oversees all furniture designs.

Always an African violet because there's good light there. I usually change out seasonal runners on the table, but I don't have a good one for August. Still have my little red one with a flag stuck in the flower pot! It's too early for a fall runner.

It doesn't change often, it had a vintage Chinoiserie tureen for years, which I sold, so now it's a 19th century Chinese famille rose bowl flanked by two vintage European porcelain birds.

I'd love to say nothing but flowers. But the truth is there is currently two laptops, one tablet, ear buds, papers, glasses and my son's framed college diploma on mine. The only other place to put the laptops is upstairs and I know my family wouldn't stand for it. When we have company, it all gets cleared away though.

Laptop, papers, camera, other clutter, an open area for me to eat at. In my new home, I plan not to do it this way. (At the moment, new home's dining table is a temporary card table with nothing on it.)

Here's mine: a handmade 1920s crochet piece and fake flower vase. I like to keep things simple and spare.

ummmmmmm a cat!! The heat/air vent is right over the table, so she lounges there most of the time :^)

Blessings,

J

jaybirdtx, we had a cat who liked the table too, so he could look out the window. Here is his on top of the table on Easter morning before I had a chance to straighten out the table cloth. What a rascal!

Birch branch and air plants.

OMG, Fully2, what a brilliant and very unique idea!

It took me a long time of swapping things in and out, but this what I settled on. Here are 2 views, one from each end:

I want fully2's one.

here is mine, not very interesting.

Lotsa junk, and a boxed cat. He loves Amazon's delivery boxes.

And he is a handsome fellow :-) Love those spots!