Entertaining design

From the Resene decorating blog

Tips and advice for kitchens and dining areas.

When it comes to creating a kitchen and dining space designed for entertaining, it’s about more than just fitting in a big table or extra chairs. True entertaining spaces balance functionality with atmosphere – places where guests feel welcome, conversations flow easily and food preparation doesn’t isolate the cook from the fun. This is where good design and thoughtful use of Resene colour really comes into its own.

Whether you’re hosting a casual brunch, a lively dinner party or family celebrations, smart planning around layout, lighting and colour will make a huge difference in how the space feels and works.

Your kitchen menu

Colour, in particular, plays a key role in setting the tone for a successful entertaining space. It can also be crucial in creating the right balance between function and style in a kitchen.

Crisp whites like Resene Alabaster and Resene Rice Cake will always be popular on kitchen cabinetry and surfaces because they help it immediately feel fresh and clean and can make smaller darker kitchens feel bigger and brighter. Make sure you also take your artificial lighting into account. Too much brightness against bright whites can end up being a bit too glary. If that’s the case consider moving toward subtle creams or off-whites like Resene Quarter Parchment or Resene Double Rice Cake if you want an all-neutral kitchen.

Whites and pale neutrals are also practical inside cupboards and pantries to ensure they’re clean and it’s easy to find what you need.

If an all-white kitchen is not for you, your options are endless, but a good place to start adding colour is repainting cabinetry. Even laminate cupboards can be painted over. Just start with a base coat of waterborne Resene Laminate and Melamine Primer, which creates an adhesion layer for your topcoat of colour to stick to.

Ceramic tiles and glass are the other common kitchen surfaces you can paint to give your room an immediate, colourful facelift. Prepare tiles or glass with Resene Waterborne Sureseal before you topcoat in Resene SpaceCote Low Sheen, Resene Lustacryl semi-gloss or Resene Enamacryl gloss. Try a spray applicator, brush or roller; whatever gives you the best result on your surface.

You can also paint your wooden, concrete or tiled kitchen floor if it is in need of an updated or refurbished finish. The best tip for floors, particularly in high traffic areas like kitchens is to go for a hard-wearing, non-slip paint like Resene Walk-on.

Create a sophisticated faux-tile effect by painting your floor in a base colour, then stencil a repeated ‘tile’ pattern over the top in a contrast colour. The simplest tile look to recreate is a black and white checkerboard effect using Resene White as your base colour, then adding squares in Resene Black or choose different contrasting Resene shades to suit your kitchen colour palette.

Dining in

Unless you have quite a large home, dining rooms can be a bit of an after-thought in modern homes; often tucked into the corner of an open plan living area and becoming multi-purpose zones for school homework and home office work as well as sitting down to eat.

That means, just like a kitchen, they often become the social centre of your home and you need to put a good amount of thought into balancing the function of the space with the appearance.

One of the key features of a successful dining area is scale. It can be really easy, especially if you love entertaining, to cram in the largest dining table that will fit. That can actually hamper your entertaining efforts rather than help because it becomes too difficult for people to move easily around in the space. Mask out the footprint of your favourite table (in its largest and smaller forms if it’s extendable) on the floor before buying. Aim to have at least 50cm space anywhere people will have to walk around furniture.

Scale also means paying attention to the height of your room. If you have high ceilings and/or a large room, a small delicate table may get lost or overwhelmed.

Smart use of paint colours can help you play with scale a bit more by creating optical illusions. In dining rooms with high ceilings, consider painting the ceiling in a bold shade that’s the same as the walls or bring the ceiling colour down about one-third of the walls. In a confined dining space try using light breezy neutrals or pastels like Resene Quarter Tea or Resene Gum Leaf and opt for layers of similar toned colours in your decor so your eye blurs the borders of the room.

If you have a large open plan room, but prefer a smaller, intimate dining area, create the illusion of walls by painting out a section in a contrasting colour to the rest of the space. Corners work particularly well for this. You can paint out the floor, walls and even the ceiling in the same colour so your dining area becomes visually contained and separate from the rest of the space. Wallpapering a section of wall using a favourite design from the Resene Wallpaper Collection is another way to create a similar effect.

Warm, inviting shades such as rich reds like Resene Pohutukawa or deep greens like Resene Welcome help create a sociable, comfortable mood. Cooler, muted hues like Resene Duck Egg Blue or biscuity beige Resene Athena lend a sense of relaxed elegance. Before you dive into the Resene colour menu, think about the kind of mood you want to create in your dining space – both for day-to-day living and when you’re entertaining.

Remember to add details like rich fabric tablecloths, napkins and cushions to elevate your everyday dining space into something more luxurious when you need to.

Another easy way to elevate your dining space is with wallpaper. There are a huge range of designs to choose from in the Resene Wallpaper Collection including conversational designs that will get guests talking.

Don’t forget the outdoors!

When it comes to creating appealing and functional outdoor dining areas, it’s a good idea to think about function, lighting and how people will move around the space, just as you would indoors.

You’re less hemmed in by ceilings and walls, so it can be charming to place a small table in a large backyard, exactly where the sun hits for your afternoon cocktail or morning coffee. It could be a dramatic talking point to have a large table in a smaller garden – particularly if it’s painted in a bold colour like bold Resene Bokara Grey.

If your al fresco dining area flows from the house, think about a colour scheme that connects it to the interior so it makes both spaces feel larger. That doesn’t mean it needs to be the same. Outdoor areas are a great opportunity to play with bolder colours than you might be comfortable with inside so you can go for a deeper or brighter version of your indoor palette.

If you’ve opted for Resene Half Tea as your main colour inside, with accents of burnt orange Resene Moroccan Spice, incorporate the bolder orange into your outdoor furniture, then add Resene Half Tea in pots or DIY wall art outside.

For a cosier more intimate dining space outdoors, screen off an area of patio or deck in a different shade from the rest of your outdoor area. If your deck is stained in warm Resene Woodsman Decking Oil Stain in Resene Heartwood, add a trellis screen in dark Resene Charred Black to retain the warmth of the wood, while adding shelter and cosiness. Fill your intimate dining space with leafy plants and pots painted in the colours found in your surrounding garden or the exterior colour of your house.

Colours mentioned in this article

Products mentioned in this article

April 11, 2025

If you need help finding the right colours and wallpaper to elevate your dining space, come in and visit your local Resene ColorShop, Ask a Resene Colour Expert free online or book a Resene Colour Consultation free in-store or virtually or a paid home visit in selected areas.

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