On another project, while creating the schematic design for a kitchen/dining room in a Brooklyn brownstone this month, we studied and later proposed two combinations for lighting, tables, and chairs to help the client visualize the type of lighting required to make the space feel warm and inviting.

Since this is a house built in the mid 1800’s, we like the idea of a traditional chandelier form, in a modern iteration-over the table, balanced by a pair of more modern glass globes over the island.

Antique English dining chairs with a beautiful aged patina, pair so well with a modern oval metal dining table. We like the roundness of the chair backs with the oval shaped table. We’d probably reupholster the seat cushions in something colorful and fun.

This metal dining table (below left) is so unexpected. We think it’ll be fabulous living in such close proximity to the calacatta marble countertops on the island in the kitchen.

In this scenario it’s the lighting, made in California with a Mediterranean feel, that throws things off a bit and makes it interesting.

Vintage Windsor Chairs in good condition, in numbers more than six, are really hard to come by.

There are also a number of manufacturers on the East Coast still making reproduction Windsor Chairs based upon the original patterns. The distressed, painted ones add contrast.