Our Classic Modern Dining Room Furniture with Bassett BenchMade

Why heirloom dining tables are worth the splurge and the best table shape to make a small dining room feel bigger.

This post is sponsored by Bassett Furniture.

I can’t believe after a summer of hard work in this space, we finally have the classic modern dining room furniture of our dreams!

What started out as my and Robert’s simple conversation of, “We really need to replace this wobbly broken Facebook Marketplace dining table” morphed into “What if we got a dining room table we could one day pass down to our girls?”

Suddenly, our furniture hunt turned into an extra important task, and before we knew it, we were designing a dining room set made to last for generations with Bassett BenchMade.

classic modern dining room furniture

It comes with a bit of a back story though. You see, my great-grandmother’s dining room table that my mother inherited currently resides at my parents’ house. One day, that colonial table will be passed down to our older daughter, Olivia.

But since we have two little girls, we thought it would be special to have an heirloom-quality dining table just for our younger daughter, Regan, too.

It would be a table where our family would gather around every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and birthday, a table that would hold so many special memories and needed to be solid and well-made, just like my great grandmother’s.

classic modern dining room with navy walls, linen curtains, wood MCM table, and black chairs

So Robert and I selected the solid oak Owens Oval Dining Table to marry the age of our house built during the mid-century modern era in 1960 as well as help our 14’x14′ dining room feel more spacious with its oval shape. (If you ever have a small dining room on your hands, choosing a round or oval table will provide more room without sacrificing capacity.)

classic modern dining room with navy walls, linen curtains, wood MCM table, black chairs, and French mirror

In May, we traveled to Bassett, Virginia to see our table being crafted in person by BenchMade artisans.

BenchMade Bassett Furniture factory visit

Witnessing the building of our table that we know will be a piece of family history for us and our girls made this entire process beyond words for me.

BenchMade Bassett Furniture factory visit
BenchMade Bassett Furniture factory visit

And now here it is finished in our home! Look at that gorgeous wood grain!

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wood midcentury modern oval dining table

The Summerfield Oak finish is absolutely stunning and is the perfectly versatile mid-tone to work well in any color palette.

midcentury modern dining table with upholstered chairs, navy walls, and french mirror

We chose these Brooke Arm Dining Chairs in Sunbrella Performance Texture Alabaster fabric to make them as durable as possible. And the Rollins Oak Side Chairs in Brandy Oak finish are the perfect classic shape built to last.

classic modern dining room with midcentury modern table, black chairs, and French mirror

Sitting in these chairs at this table just brings us peace knowing it can withstand decades of love and will be in our lives forever.

navy dining room with linen curtains

We decided to keep our thrifted footed grasscloth buffet we worked so hard on last year though. 😉

French mirror on white buffet with navy walls

Since installing the picture frame molding, painting the navy walls, hanging the curtains, and scoring our secondhand shaded chandelier, this now classic modern dining room has absolutely come to life!

classic modern dining room with mid century modern dining table

We still aren’t quite finished with plans still ahead in the coming weeks to hang an antique style scenic mural around the room. This Woden Rug‘s geometric design that reminds me of my Scandinavian roots will play perfectly with the organic mural once the paint on the walls cures.

classic modern dining room with mid century modern dining table, navy walls, black chairs, French mirror, and white buffet

After a couple of years of trial and error feeling out our style, this room finally feels like home. I breathe deeper in this space knowing this is “us”. The wait to get here has been so worth it.

I know this style is not for everyone, and it has come a long way from how we used to decorate 8 years ago when I started this blog. But the best part of finding your style is once you do get there, you don’t feel the need to second guess it. Home should feel like home.

classic modern dining room with mid century modern dining table, navy walls, linen curtains

Because home should always reflect the hearts of those who live there. This dining room does that and will continue to tell our family’s story for years to come.

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37 Comments

  1. This room is beautiful, and I could only dream of having such a beautiful dining set. Literally, I could only dream of it because the cost of the chairs alone would be a small fortune for me. I can’t imagine how much the table cost. Do most people spend thousands of dollars on dining chairs? I mean I love all of it, but is this something most people can afford, and it’s just me feeling really poor right now? I am actually asking?

    1. Julie I think we all have issues with not being able to afford what we really want. If you really want this or something like it, figure out a way to make it happen but stick to your guns until you can afford it. Her chairs might be brand new or they could even be from a yard sale. You, nor I will never know will we? And why should we? They got what they wanted regardless of how and it looks fabulous! Sell some things around your house and put that money aside for your table and chairs. I too want a table that is 1799.00 and can’t afford it right now but I’ve been scrimping and saving as much as I can so I can buy it one day, which i hope will be before the holidays but it’s ok if it’s not, I will just keep saving. Yeah it’s just the table. Thank goodness I have chairs from another set I bought years ago. I will just redo them to work with the new table. Think of other ways to make some extra money and just keep saving! I craft on the side and sell things periodically to extra as well. I tell hubby, no I’m not a queen but I can still live like one if I want to! Lol

    2. Hey, Julie, I understand exactly how you feel. Just remember, most bloggers are “gifted” with Items so that they will use them in their designs. It’s great for the blogger to receive and then review free stuff, and good advertising for companies who gift them.
      I love finding unique pieces at thrift stores, garage sales or family “heirlooms” and fixing them up to suit my needs. I hate paying full price for items at furniture stores when I can find better quality pieces on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. For years I thrift shopped almost all our furniture and enjoyed the hunt! When we finally had the money to buy bigger homes and needed more furniture fast, we went to a nice furniture store and bought thousands of dollars of beautiful new furniture. But a few years later, we retired, paid cash for a little house on 30 acres, and had to get rid of almost all our lovely furniture because our new home was one-third the size and our pieces were just too big for our little rooms. We sold or gave away almost everything except for a couple of antiques. Our new home has smaller scale pieces which I’ve found on FB or Craigslist. I’ve shopped for bargains online since we live in the boonies and aren’t close to furniture stores, and it’s been fun! Our four kids showed little interest in our furniture before we moved, so I doubt they will want any of our stuff later on. My advice is to find quality older pieces and be creative in making them work for you. I’ve found that I’m more attached to pieces I rescued than anything I bought retail. Give yourself the freedom to go find cool stuff anywhere you can! Make your finds fit your style and have fun in the process.
      Older and hopefully wiser.

    3. New furniture is very expensive. You may have some luck finding some used, but still in good condition, things on Facebook marketplace.

    4. Hi Julie. I completely understand your concerns. This is definitely a splurge setup for us as well, but one we’re confident will last longer than budget options as we wanted it to be an heirloom. All of it is made of solid oak, which is why it costs more than what you would find at Walmart or Target. (You could probably find some solid oak tables and chairs with a lot of digging on Marketplace and Craigslist… we didn’t have much luck with that this past year until Bassett reached out to us, but your area might be different.) It’s one of those you-get-what-you-pay-for sort of things, and after going the secondhand route years ago and that secondhand table we madeover failed over time because it was made of low quality MDF, this route seemed right. Bassett provided this to us, and after visiting their factory, we realized this wasn’t just paying for a cheaply made item from China where people work for hardly any pay. This was furniture crafted by artisans here in the United States, our own neighbors, who take great pride in their work. American made products are generally more well made but that also often comes with a higher price when we support American made. But that $ also stays right within our own country’s economy, which is commendable. I know this isn’t an affordable set, but maybe you can try searching local classifieds and maybe a lucky find will come along. We did use a secondhand buffet and gave it a makeover as well as found our chandelier on FB Marketplace and did the molding and painting in the room to create a less pricey end result. Or if you feel ambitious or have great DIY skills, you could try building it from scratch. Ana-white.com and jenwoodhouse.com are great blogs to find furniture building tips.

  2. Very beautiful….timeless and elegant with an edge. The sideboard fits the room perfectly, so good choice in keeping it. The mural (whichever one you choose) will take it to the next level. The chandelier is gorgeous….what a score! You and the Mr. are very talented with excellent taste!!

  3. are the sides of the table and the legs a different color? In most pics it looks like it’s darker on the bottom. Can’t tell if it’s just the shot?