January, 1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 31 
The Dining-Room 
By John A. Gade 
HE dining-room is the only room in a dwell- 
ing house which is only used for a single 
purpose and at stated times. The problems 
thus involved by its construction, its posi- 
tion and its relation, become special and 
definite ones. All the other rooms lived in 
by the household in common have varied 
uses and dependencies. The library and the study, or den, 
are read in, are used for after-dinner smoking, for writing, or 
for the transaction of business relating to the house. The 
very name of the living-room has become ambiguous from 
the fact of its varied usage. It may be a parlor, a general 
assembly room for the family or guests at all hours of the 
day, used for music, cards, sewing or conversation. And the 
hall is now likewise, and especially in country houses, de- 
The service door should be concealed behind 
signed and furnished for the use of general lounging and 
living, while its purpose as an intermediary stage between in 
and out doors and its staircase leading to upper stories have 
been suppressed or altered. 
The conditions that primarily determine the dining-room 
are its exclusive usage at meal time, its furnishing with the 
necessary furniture for the service and enjoyment of the 
meals, and its dependency and connection with the pantry and 
kitchen. The dinner is possibly the only more or less formal 
social occasion at which we gather. While eating, certain 
forms, manners and customs are observed in our demeanor 
toward each other and the servants. We no longer, if owners 
of our own castles, sit on a raised dais facing all except our 
social equals; the viands are no longer prepared and cut up 
in our presence; we do not even, as in the last century, use 
the dining-room throughout the evening until we finally re- 
tire under the table. 
On the contrary, we employ a most elaborate and com- 
plicated service of glass, porcelain, silver, and pewter, with 
a screen 
special articles for every imaginable purpose—we are served 
as rapidly and silently as is possible in a certain prescribed 
succession of courses. ‘The meal, at least the principal one, 
has become a social as well as a formal function. 
The serving of the meal and the furniture of the dining- 
room determine at the outset its shape. We have in general 
a table, the chairs, both used and unused, the sideboard, the 
serving table and china cabinets, and, possibly, a screen con- 
cealing the pantry at the frequent opening and closing of its 
door. The size of the table invariably placed in the center 
of the room, considered in connection with the chairs around 
it (each person should be allowed from twenty-six to thirty- 
one inches of space), the space requisite to serve back of 
these, and any furniture against the side walls of the room, 
are what should determine its dimensions. If the table is of 
the usual dimensions, four 
feet nine inches or five feet 
square or round, one foot 
eight inches should be al- 
lowed around it for chairs, 
two feet more for serving, 
and from two feet two 
inches to three feet for fur- 
niture. Basing the dimen- 
sions of the room upon 
these figures, and the fact 
that the three feet allow- 
ance for furniture will prob- 
ably be requisite on only 
two adjacent sides of the 
room, no side of the room 
should be less than fifteen 
feet. These are liberal di- 
mensions, but it should be 
clearly borne in mind that 
nowhere is comfort more 
imperative than in a dining- 
room. The servant must 
not be obliged to draw in 
her breath to pass back of 
the diners’ chairs, nor must 
the allotted space be so 
small that furniture and 
walls are knocked when the chairs are pushed back, and, in 
case of a dinner party, guests be obliged to sit glued together. 
The dining-room should be more nearly square than any 
other room of the house, as it gathers round the one regular 
piece of furniture, the table, or tocus, equal space is requisite 
all around it for serving, and the room is never, as is a living- 
room, or library, or hall, broken up into “groups” by furni- 
ture or inmates. 
There should further be kept in mind the position of the 
fireplace and the extension of the table. The proper heating 
is naturally a very vital question. You can not heat a dining- 
room as you would one of the other living-rooms, where the 
occupants are at liberty freely to move nearer or further 
away from the source of heat. At the same time that the 
dining-room ought not, as is frequently the case, to be so 
cold that low-necked ladies shiver until they are obliged to 
send for shawls and wraps, it should be cool in comparison 
with the parlor or library. During meal time, by the con- 
/ 
sumption of food (and especially wines), as well as by the 
