The secret to selecting outdoor dining tableware, cutlery, placemats etcetera is to first look at your surroundings. What is the color of the siding on your home? If it’s white or gray, you have an open palate to work with. But what if your siding is bright blue, or sage green, or red or Santa Fe orange or peach color? I’m not sure if I’ve seen a red house, but let’s just use this as an idea to bounce from, as the principles for selection will always be the same… but let’s back up a bit. Is this you…? You go to your favorite home goods store, you peruse all the beautiful dishes, glassware, candles, then head around to the outdoor dining sets, and suddenly realize, the more you look the more confused you become. So you buy one candle and leave… frustrated.
Unfortunately, all too many times that is the scenario OR… we buy a ton of stuff only to realize once we get it home that it doesn’t go with anything we have and then we end up returning it. The other scenario is we keep it and nothing at all jives for color, style or theme and it’s a hodge-podge mess. If you don’t mind hodge-podge messes that’s great, but if you love decor and want a more cohesive look, follow these principles when shopping.
So let’s talk about surroundings, color, style and theme.
Surroundings for your outdoor dining could be a covered porch/veranda, an outdoor barbecue area/outdoor kitchen, or an area beside a pool, or just a beautiful area you would put an outdoor table for perhaps a special dinner party, ie kids graduation, wedding reception etcetera, or even an outdoor dinner. If you have outdoor furnishings, is it all cohesive looking, is there a them to it? Try to take pieces that are similar in style and keep them together. If you have a very oddball old chair that is not doing the trick, you could remove it and see how it looks as far as furnishings. But let’s talk about selecting the dishware and color.
So first we looked at the color of the house, the surrounding or area for our table and now let’s look at color. Using the picture in this post, you can see that blue is the main color (this is not bold primary blue but a water color). Keeping with the blue color scheme, this person has chosen an afternoon luncheon theme, soft and relaxing. The cups and saucers are a powder blue with a stripe and check pattern. Mixing patterns is fine as long as they are cohesive together. The blues are soft and not sharp or bold. The mug is another pale blue, and the hydrangea is another soft blue. The cutlery is gray and there are silver banded clear glasses as well. The colors used blend together seemingly as one against the natural wood and natural weave placemats. Had they thrown bright red in there, it wouldn’t look good, or orange. Not everything has to be monotone though, if you added yellows or mauve or green to this setting it would look lovely as long as the tone was muted. For instance, a bouquet of very pale yellow roses would be lovely or white as a table centerpiece. Bold colors hang out together and soft colors hang out together. Cold colors hang out together as do warm colors.
So the theme is an afternoon luncheon, the color palette is soft blues, gray, and natural wood. The reason this setting works is because the color blue is picked up in several items. The wood tone is picked up in the placemats and grays are dappled throughout. A person could even add some pretty lumbar cushions to the chairs or white, silver or blue napkins, as long as they are in the same hue. So that is some help in choosing your outdoor decor and accessories. Have fun, and make it your own great design!
