Ennis Fine Furniture

Month: August 2022

Reinventing the Classic Dining Room with Canadel

Canadel buffet in your dining room

Reinventing the Classic Dining Room with Canadel

If you’ve seen any newly-built homes recently, kitchens have begun to shrink from the cavernous amphitheaters of the open-concept to more functional, organized sizes; this means contemporary home design is returning to the distinct, concise room theory. With working from home being more popular than ever, rooms have seen their purpose evolve dramatically, the emphasis now being on a clear division of roles in the household and of course, privacy. In addition to more rooms and less shared expanse, the dining room has been reformed from its reduced role as an undefined, ambiguous area with a table and chairs that merely occupied the space between the living room and kitchen, to a more purposeful, authentic performance. The dining room is a room again, typified by an enclosed set of walls with little to no view of the kitchen. The exclusion of the space from the rest of the house ensures it can operate as intended: a nice, quiet place to share a meal. To keep conversation flowing through the room, a server table–like the Highlands Server from Stickley–can keep a smattering of dishes within arm’s reach while freeing up the main table of unnecessary plate traffic and eliminating second trips to the kitchen. Free from the all-consuming gaze of the television (or any other distraction, for that matter,) the fine dining experience can once again become a mainstay of the home.

Wondering where these trends are pushing up in the furniture game? Just look at china hutches (also called hutch dressers, sideboards or buffets.) Once a commonplace figure in a fine dining spread, hutches have had a steady decline in popularity from the 1960s up until about five years ago. As kitchens and their cabinets increased in size, chinaware storage elsewhere in the home became irrelevant. Thankfully, this recorrecting shift in dimensions has awarded the buffet a new lease on life: it’s back and better than ever! With the ‘grand-millenial aesthetic’ and maximalism at the helm, modern interior design has helped us reshape rooms into vivid expressions of ourselves. The hutches and buffets of yesteryear still provide that fine dining experience but are now being utilized under different contexts and with updated nomenclature. Instead of just china, some have been using them as displays for various curated items: collectibles, art, jewelry, etc. Like the Metal Prism Deck from Sligh, for example; it’s no longer just a ‘china’ hutch, but more so a gallery shelf with a buffet dresser underneath. Lacking traditional cabinetry, the open-air design allows the brass fittings to glint a perfect polished trophy glow. These pieces of furniture have become invaluable to the expressive nature of maximalist design.

At Ennis Fine Furniture, we embrace the wide spectrum of utility a sideboard, hutch or buffet can provide. Many of these pieces are by our innovative contemporary brands, with modern styling and design cues; similar to the classic type, but only in functionality. We have Canadel buffets in stock that are strikingly industrial and contemporary. The Dining Room Buffet–warm, natural solid wood finishes, clean lines and bold wrought-iron black hardware–a lovely modernization of a vintage favorite. Not finding a combination you like? Let our interior designers work with you and the manufacturer to provide custom-built pieces, with a host of woods (ash, cherry, oak, poplar, to name a few) and custom fabrics to choose from. We provide these services because we think fine furniture stores should, bare minimum. Come down to one of our three Pacific Northwest locations (Boise, Richland and Spokane) and see what makes us the standard for fine furniture.

A Blossom of Personality with Kincaid

Kincaid rustic dining table and set

A Blossom of Personality with Kincaid

As heatwave upon heatwave continues to emanate from our unblinking sun, the push to spend the entire month of August inside has perhaps never been as strong as the one from this year’s warm spell. Unless you’ve got a swamp cooler and fan trailing you like a drone around your patio and immediate yard, one can imagine most get-togethers and dining parties will be inside events for the foreseeable future. Those new Venetian Outdoor Living Room sets from Brown Jordan will unfortunately have to wait. No need to fret on this matter; for an invitation to a cooled, bespoke dining room will have your guests wishing they had been introduced to your little oasis a lot sooner! Having spent most of the last two years indoors, it may be difficult to find a fresh take on a room you’re so familiar with, but with the blaring heat outside, an escape to a comfortable area to eat and unwind is a must.

But it doesn’t have to be boring! Wrapping your surroundings with a whisk of new flair will bring peace and comfort to any troubled mind. Not only for your guests, but for the homemaker as well; you have to live with it the remainder of the time, so it should reflect your sense of self. To create this special space, or simply to revamp an existing dining room, recent trends have again left the minimalism and sleek look of the past decade to a more expressive, maximalist style. A ‘blossom of personality’, if you will. Bold, bright, and vibrant colors, with unorthodox, typically-unused hues are the right flavor for your summer-vibing, expressive dining room. Everything from the rug to the rafters can be a blank canvas for expression. However, for those wanting to experiment with just a dash of this new spice, Ennis has numerous tabletop decor and illumination choices to let that vibrant streak be localized to one area. Wildwood is our premier maker of fun and colorful lamp bases, each one a unique blend of impressionistic abstraction and flawless ceramics.

Shabby Chic and Rustic Chic styles have been experiencing a resurgence lately–and lucky for us– as these classics fit in nicely, focusing on the feel the furniture brings rather than its outward appearance; a real and weathered look that reminds us to champion the imperfections we see. Ennis carries multiple manufacturers that harness such qualities. For instance, Heckman has a whole line of beautifully stained cherry veneers, with a deep, distressed look that’s awash in character; a champion of these ideals. Whatever the style family, patterns and ornate designs should be aplenty; the more colorful, the better. Having one whole wall dedicated to a gallery of personal decor (a medley of family photos, self-made art and sentimental antiques) will help firmly establish this homey aesthetic, while still giving a visceral ‘pop’.

Luckily, your local, family-owned furniture store–Ennis Fine Furniture–has been ramping up for this turn of events so we will be ready for your dining room’s next metamorphosis. Take a gander at our dining room sets from Kincaid Furniture. Rustic, workmanlike lines flow along either a brightly-painted colored finish or a distressed wood stain, both offering a strong visual base for our custom-fabric patterns and designs. We have dozens of fabrics to choose from and countless combinations therein; one of our many specialties here at Ennis. See for yourself at any of our locations: Boise, Tri-Cities and Spokane!



 
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