At home, I don't have a dining room. Our table sits in the kitchen, and on a good day it seats six, eight if some of those are children and everyone breathes in. For years I thought this was a limitation, but now I think it's a true blessing.
When you cannot do grand, or formal, you have to do memorable instead. If you cannot wheel out a long mahogany table under a chandelier, that's fine because what you can do is make the person sitting across from you feel that you went to some trouble and care. I want my guests to feel that this particular lunch, on this particular afternoon, was memorable and special.
That is what a dressed table does. It turns coming over for lunch into a proper occasion, and it can achieve this in a kitchen, on a small table, with things you mostly already own.
I have always had an eye for detail and a weakness for colour. I acquire (without meaning to), cotton blankets, tablecloths, remnants of fabric in shades that have no business together, until you put them on a table and suddenly they sing. Laying a table is where I get to be creative, and I get to do it for people I love. That's the spirit of everything below.
What is a tablescape, and how is it different from just setting the table?
A tablescape is a table dressed with real thought rather than simply laid with cutlery. The difference is a centrepiece and a point of view. Setting the table is a knife, a fork, a plate. A tablescape adds flowers, colour, texture and a few small touches that pull the whole thing together and tell your guests the meal is an occasion, not a refuelling stop. You do not need a special table or expensive china to make one. Some of the loveliest tables I have laid, used flowers from the garden and plates I have collected over years.
How do you start a tablescape?
Start with one thing you love, not a shopping list. A colour, a cloth, a single object, a bunch of flowers you could not walk past. Everything else follows from that.
For a summer lunch with my parents over the August bank holiday last year, the starting point was a bright orange linen cloth. Everything else grew out of it: white plates to keep it clean, cornflower blue coffee cups for contrast, and a centrepiece of pale roses with whole lemons tucked in among the blooms, all sitting in a vintage bowl. Grapes, meringues, sausage rolls, a fruit salad in a lidded tureen. The cloth made the decision, and the decision made the table.
When I laid a Valentine’s table for James and me, just the two of us, the starting point was a pair of teal candles. Everything arranged itself around that one pretty idea. One object, and the rest falls into place.
How tall should a table centrepiece be?
Keep it low, under about 30cm, so people can see and talk to each other across the table. This is the single rule I try not to break.
Many a time, I sat at a wedding table, with the towering vase or the great branched candelabra planted 50cm from my face, peering around it to catch half a sentence from the person opposite. An occasion is for talking to people, meeting people, enjoying yourself. It is not for conducting a conversation through a floral hedge! Low flowers are not only prettier, they are kinder to conversation. They put the people first, which is the entire reason you went to the trouble.
My centrepieces are almost always a low, generous posy: roses and hydrangeas from the garden in a jug, or peonies with a few sprigs of rosemary pushed in among them. Low enough to see over, full enough to matter.
Do you need placemats if you have a tablecloth?
Not if the cloth has character and the plates are pretty. This is one of my small heresies. If you have a beautiful cloth, or the plate is the more lovely object, let it sit straight on the linen and be the hero. A mat over a patterned cloth just competes for attention.
Where a placemat does make sense is over a neutral plain cloth, or when you want to protect a fragile antique one from heat and red wine, or to define each setting on a very big table. When I laid an everyday blue and white table, plain white plates, no busy cloth, the blue cord mats were exactly right, because there was nothing for them to fight with. So the honest rule is this: plain neutral cloth, a mat adds warmth and protection. Characterful vintage cloth or pretty plates, skip it and let the plate or cloth speak.
Can you use flowers and foliage from the garden?
Yes, and I almost always do. Garden foliage is seasonal, it is free, and it is uniquely yours. Nobody else’s table looks quite like it.
We have more ferns than we know what to do with, so I hack a few back and lay a single frond across each plate. The olive tree needs cutting anyway, so it goes straight into a jug. If there is nothing in the garden at the right moment, I will happily buy a bunch from the supermarket or the florist, but when I can cut my own, I do, because it ties the table to the day and the season and the house.
I also like scented foliage in among the flowers, rosemary or lavender, so there is a soft green scent while you eat. Some chefs might raise an eyebrow at that but I think it makes the whole thing more of an occasion.
Should you decorate the plates?
I like to put something on each plate so it does not sit there bare. It is the smallest touch and it makes the setting look finished, as though someone took trouble over it.
At the pink garden table I set a single rose on every plate. On the fern table, a frond. It might be a sprig of rosemary, a little fern, three stems of lavender, whatever is to hand and in season. It reads as a small creative gesture, a wink to your guest before they have even sat down, and it costs nothing but a moment.
How do you use colour on a table without it looking too much?
Let one strong element lead, then let everything else answer to it. Colour is the quickest way to lift a room and lift an occasion, but it needs a spine.
Coloured glass is my favourite way in. Most of us are handed a plain glass at a table. How much nicer to pick up amber, or smoke grey, or rose. My amber tumblers against an orange cloth, smoke glass beside pink roses, these are small decisions that make the table feel thought through and a little bit joyful.
Mismatched serving pieces work the same way, as long as they are loosely connected. Different white and blue transferware, not a matching willow set but a gathered family of blue and white prints, looks collected and interesting in a way a boxed set never will. The looseness is what gives it life.
How do you nod to the season on a table?
I love to add one small seasonal detail such as shells scattered down the centre of a summer table or pine cones or chestnuts in autumn. A one pound bunch of daffodils in spring is another tiny gesture and it roots the table in the exact moment you are living in.
In high summer I even bring the season into the food. For a Sunday lunch with Sarah and John I made a red Camargue rice dish and scattered it with borage flowers picked straight from the garden, those vivid, star-shaped blue ones. Dead in season, completely edible and free, and so pretty in a little handmade bowl. Brightening the food is just another way of saying welcome.
Why does a separate water glass matter?
Because water is hospitality, and hospitality is what you offer before anyone has to ask. A separate water glass is, for me, non-negotiable. I think of the French, who bring you bread and water before you have ordered a thing. That instinct, care offered up front, is what a good table runs on.
Serve the water with a little character too: a pretty jug, an old lemonade bottle, a French carafe, anything but a generic plastic picnic jug, so people can top themselves up without asking. In summer I put out a small bowl or a tiny silver bucket of ice with a spoon, because one of my dearest friends likes her water full of ice, while prefer mine tepid, and a good host caters for both. Noticing that difference is the kind of small thing people remember long after they have forgotten what they ate.
The tables in this post
Every table here was laid for real people, in our kitchen or just outside it.
The fern and peony table was an impromptu, last-minute lunch with Lize and Andrew last year, thrown together and all the better for it. The terracotta pot table, roses and clematis potted in little pots down the centre, was for my oldest friend Georgina and her husband Darren, whom we had not properly seen in far too long. The orange abundance table was my parents over the bank holiday. The pink garden table, and the photo of me raising a glass, was a long-overdue catch-up with Anne and Rob, friends we met through the school gates. The amber-glass table outside was last week with Sarah and John for summer Sunday lunch, with the borage in the rice. And the teal-candle table was Valentine’s, just James and me.
Different people, different seasons, one small kitchen table. What ties them together is not a colour or a style. It is the wish to make someone feel, the moment they walk in, that you were glad enough they were coming to make it a little bit special.
Frequently asked questions
What is a tablescape?
A tablescape is a dining table dressed with real thought, a centrepiece, colour, texture and small personal touches, rather than simply laid with plates and cutlery. It is meant to turn a meal into an occasion.
How tall should a centrepiece be?
Keep it under about 30cm so guests can see and talk to each other across the table. Low, generous arrangements are both prettier and kinder to conversation than tall vases or candelabra.
Do I need placemats if I use a tablecloth?
Not usually. If the cloth has character and the plates are attractive, let the plate sit straight on the cloth. Placemats are most useful over a plain cloth, to protect a fragile antique one, or to define settings on a large table.
Can I use flowers from my garden on the table?
Yes. Garden flowers and foliage are seasonal, free and personal to your home. Ferns, herbs, olive and single roses all work beautifully. Shop-bought flowers are a perfectly good substitute when the garden has nothing to give.
What is an easy way to make each place setting feel special?
Lay a single flower or a sprig of herb such as rosemary on each plate. It stops the plate looking bare and makes the whole setting feel finished and cared for.
How do I add colour to a table without it looking too busy?
Let one strong element lead and keep the rest in a related palette. Coloured glassware and loosely matched serving pieces, such as mixed blue and white china, add interest without chaos.
How do I set the water on the table?
Always give each guest a separate water glass, and serve water in something characterful like a jug or carafe so people can help themselves. In summer, add a small bowl of ice with a spoon so guests can take as much or as little as they like.
However you dress your own table, most of what makes it special is care rather than expense. If you are gathering pieces for yours, you will find glassware, coloured glass, ceramics and vintage linens over in the homeware here.
Anna x
Founder of The Blue Loft
