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Colour guides · Dining room
The dining room is the evening room. It is lived in by candlelight and pendant light, around a table, and the rules that hold elsewhere — lighten, enlarge — reverse there: a dining room wants depth, warmth and a little theatre. It is the room where dark colours are easiest to dare.
Here are ten Mylands colours for a dining room, from the golden whites that flatter a table to the night colours that wrap around it.
Updated September 2026 · by the Mylands France colour team
The short answer
For a dining room, choose colours that improve under artificial light: the night blues Observatory No.34 and Blueprint No.50, the deep greens Pleasure Gardens Green No.214 and Deep Green FTT-012, the reds and plums Huguenot No.49 and Plum Tree No.283. For a daytime dining room, a golden yellow such as Cavendish Cream No.120 or a warm neutral such as Hoxton Grey No.72.
At a glance
10 colours
The night blue
A deep, greyed blue named after the Greenwich observatory, which under candlelight takes on the colour of a midnight sky. It is our most requested dining-room colour: dark enough to envelop, blue enough to stay fresh, and flattering to everything gilded — frames, brass, waxed wood, and faces by the light of the flames.
Our tip — Ceiling in Walpole, a bluish white, and woodwork in Sleet: the dining room stays tall and crisp.
The green of the English dining room
A very dark, leafy green that makes any dining room look like the one in a club or a country house. At night it recedes into shadow and lets the table become the only source of light; by day it makes the greenery of a garden through the window blaze. With portraits, prints and mahogany it is unbeatable.
Our tip — A dark green wall behind a pale sideboard in Lots Road: the sideboard becomes a picture.
The dinner red
A deep, brown claret, the red of the Huguenot houses of Spitalfields. Dark red is the traditional dining-room colour for a simple reason: it stimulates the appetite and flatters faces. Huguenot does it with discretion — it is more wine than red, and it ages beautifully by candlelight.
Our tip — Woodwork in a warm white such as Holbein Chamber, never a cool white that would turn it purple.
The golden cream
For a dining room used at noon as much as at night, a soft golden cream yellow that looks like sunshine even on a grey day. It makes a room welcoming rather than dramatic, and turns candlelight warmer still. It is the colour of country kitchen-diners, where cheer is wanted rather than theatre.
Our tip — With chairs in Sorrel Green or Observatory, the table becomes the centre of the room.
The plum
A deep, greyed brown-plum that is neither red nor purple but somewhere between, like the skin of a damson. It is softer than a claret and warmer than a dark grey, and under a pendant it turns to velvet. A colour for a flat's dining room, elegant and a little secret.
Our tip — Woodwork in Osterley, a faintly pink white, for a tone-on-tone match.
The emerald green
A saturated blue-green, brighter and more joyful than bottle green — the green of a brasserie dining room. It is extraordinary with brass and mirrors, and holds its own against a big table without being forgotten. A colour for those who entertain often and want a room with wit.
Our tip — A big gilt mirror and brass wall lights: the Paris brasserie at home.
The warm neutral
For a dining room open to the kitchen or sitting room, where a dark colour would isolate one corner of the space, a warm, velvety greige that welcomes everything — pale wood, mismatched chairs, coloured tableware. It is calm by day and warm by night, and lets the table and what is served on it provide the colour.
Our tip — The same Hoxton Grey on walls and ceiling, woodwork in Lots Road: the room looks bigger and softer.
The violet ink blue
More mysterious than Observatory: a midnight blue leaning to violet, the colour of a sky half an hour after sunset. It is almost black at night and blue by day, and it makes candles look more golden than any other colour. A dining room in Blueprint is a room nobody forgets.
Our tip — Ceiling in the same colour, in dead matt: the smartest night-box there is.
The Pimlico yellow
A proper, golden, warm ochre yellow, more assertive than Cavendish Cream — the yellow of Georgian dining rooms, where it was the colour of luxury. It turns a north-facing room into a sunlit one, and it is superb with blue, whether chairs, a tablecloth or china. A colour for celebration.
Our tip — Woodwork in Pure White and a door in Observatory: the Georgian contrast.
The claret brown
A deep brown veined with red, the colour of old leather or rosewood. Less red than Huguenot, warmer than Plum Tree, it is the most discreet of our warm darks — and perhaps the most flattering under a pendant light. A dining room in Rothschild Street has the softness of a library.
Our tip — With woodwork in Kensington Rose, a peach white, and plenty of wood.
Our schemes in which one of this guide's shades plays the lead — or a supporting role.
The first question to ask: when do you eat here? An evening dining room — the room of dinners, often separate — can be as dark as you like: artificial light will bring it to life, and a deep colour becomes magnificent there. A lunchtime dining room, or one open to the kitchen, benefits from a lighter, warmer colour that stays handsome in daylight and doesn't cut the space in two.
Night blues, deep greens, reds and plums have one thing in common: they hold enough warmth not to turn grey under yellow light. A cool grey, by contrast, turns dull at night. That is why Observatory No.34 and Huguenot No.49 are dining-room colours, and Drury Lane No.115 much less so.
With a dark colour, two options: a warm white ceiling that keeps some height — Holbein Chamber No.7, Lots Road No.24 — or the ceiling in the wall colour, in Multi-Surface Dead Matt, for a jewel-box dining room. The woodwork follows the ceiling, or takes a deeper shade still.
For reds in detail, see our reds and terracottas for a dining room; for blues, our deep blues compared; for the finish, find your finish.
Colour chosen, the surface remains. These are the Mylands finishes we recommend, room by room.
Walls and ceiling
Matt with Carrara marble: it is under candles and low lamps that it looks its best.
Every colour in Marble Matt Emulsion →
Colour drenching (walls + woodwork)
Ceiling, walls and woodwork as one, in dead matt: the most enveloping dining room there is.
Every colour in Multi-Surface Dead Matt →
Woodwork, doors and skirting
A painted sideboard, chairs, doors: a mid-sheen that catches the evening light.
Every colour in Multi-Surface Satin →
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