Valentina Expressions

Eating is a story, not just a moment to fulfill a necessity. Every nation has special holiday dining customs and rituals. In the western world, we sit at a well decorated table and give our guests something stunning to look at while they gather to enjoy dinner. Your dining table should be colorful, inviting, extravagant (why not?) and especially filled with good food.

It is easy to set up a table with traditional dishware, crystal glasses and silver flatware, nothing to it. The challenge comes when you want to do something out of the ordinary, colorful and follow your instinct instead of rules. How a table that responds to these characteristics would look like?

First, create a color scheme, let’s say blue. It doesn’t mean everything on the table must be blue, you need to create a rhythm with complement or analog colors.
Vincent Van Gogh said: “There is no blue without yellow and without orange”. Right there is the answer. With a blue tablecloth, yellow and orange tableware will be perfect. Blue is a cold color, yellow and orange are warm colors. You have created a color temperature.

Start with choosing a theme for your table: Bohemian, bucolic, country and so on.
Then select dark, medium and light values of the color you plan on using.
Find some complement or analogue colors to mix in and to add rhythm to the table setting.
Mix and match the tableware as you like.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

For this first tablescape the theme is Bohemian. I chose a white tablecloth as the base for layering all the colors. Two different colors tea tablecloth covered opposite corners of the table, one black with bird motifs and the other one in golden tones with classical motifs.
Playing with geometry and mixing round with square plates from various dish sets is fun. Mix vintage and modern plates, mix colors and shapes, no rules and surprise yourself.
I made the napkins from leftover material of various projects and closed them in brass napkin rings. Tea light holders made of rusted metal go well with brushed bronze flatware.
Glassware don’t match on purpose, but the greenish tone is their common denominator to other items on the table.
Prosecco bottle has an interesting Venetian embellishment. She is the autumn leaves lady that sometimes is on a wine bottle and sometimes is on a mirror somewhere else in the house. Her purpose is to embellish.

For the second Bohemian table, I have used a floral tablecloth, made of silk fabric in silver tone, as the base, then I cover it half way with a red voiles shawl. Each set of glassware is made of three different styles glasses and each set is made of the same three pieces. Even though, I chose a continuity in the glassware, I wanted my plate sets to be extravagant in style and colors. The silver flatware is a contrast to the gold wine glassware. I scattered some acrylic diamonds on the cloth to pick up light from candles and lamps outside the table. The table is set for two, it would be just the same for 4-6 or more people.

A dinner table is for food and conversation, decorations should be kept minimal and low to allow guests to see each other and talk across the table.

This will be the topic of my next TV Show: “Dinner At 7:00” produced under my label Valentina Design Universe.
I hope you have a splendid Thanksgiving. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Copyright © 2017 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. Valentina is well-known for bringing originality on any project and for thinking outside the box. Her interiors are not made with cookie cutters, only follow client’s inspiration, lifestyle and personality. She offers on-line design consultations through Skype and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of three books, all-available on
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