Black and cane dining chairs with woven pendants in a dining space

When it comes to choosing dining chairs, there are SO many options these days. It can be overwhelming! One way to narrow your search is to decide whether you want (a) all of your chairs to match, (b) to have different side chairs and head chairs, or (c) to go eclectic with a mishmash of all different chairs.

My personal preference is to either go the route of all of your dining chairs being the same or mixing and matching side chairs with head chairs. The latter is a way to add a little something extra to the space and make it feel a little more tailored and polished. You see it a lot in more formal dining rooms, but you can do it in a casual dining space too!

But the question is, how do you know what chairs to mix together? That’s what I’m going to talk about in today’s post! Along with some tips and hints, I’ve got some beautiful dining rooms that offer great examples of how to design a dining room with head chairs AND a collection of six pairs that you can use for your own home.

I focused on coastal modern style for this post since that’s my go-to look, but you can use these tips for any style!

Upholstered ivory head chairs with woven seat side chairs in a coastal traditional dining room

via Studio McGee

How to mix dining side chairs and head chairs

Though there aren’t hard and fast rules when it comes to mixing different dining chairs, there are a few methods and guidelines I like to follow. You want the chairs to look like they go together without matching, which can feel tricky to pull off unless you know what to look for in the pair!

Here are a few tips:

Make sure the dining chairs have something in common to unify them
Use different materials or features to distinguish the side chairs from the head chairs
Have the head chairs be a little grander than the side chairs
Either keep the heights about the same or have the head chairs be taller

I’ll go into a little more detail about these tips next, but that’s the gist!

via Mindy Gayer Design Co.

Give the dining chairs something in common

To help the dining seating feel cohesive, make sure the head chairs and side chairs share a similar characteristic, color, or finish. This could be that they both have gentle curves to their frames, are the same color, or have the same wood finish to the frame or legs.

In the image at the very top of the post (from Studio McGee), at first glance, these chairs look really different, but what they share is that nice soft curve feature. The swoop of the head chairs works so nicely with the horizontal curve of the backs of the wood chairs.

Then in the image above from Mindy Gayer, the chairs share a black painted finish, but the silhouettes are very different!

Pay attention to what unifies these chair pairs that helps them feel cohesive together.

Modern traditional dining room with tulip dining table and blue walls

via Emily Henderson

Use different materials to help set the head chairs apart

This might seem like a contradiction to the first tip, but it’s not! I think if you’re going to go with the head chair concept, you want to give them some oomph - something to set them apart. One way to do this is by choosing a material that’s different from what you’re using in the side chairs. In my example pairs, you’ll notice that I often went with a non-upholstered option for side chairs and then chose upholstered chairs for the head. That’s one way to do it.

Another option is to have your side chairs be simpler in design or use a single material (all wood, for example), and then for head chairs, choose a mix of materials and/or pick chairs with arms to give them more prominence or “heft.”

coastal traditional dining room with leather slipcovered head chairs and woven side chairs

via Kate Marker Interiors

Choose a grand head chair

Go big or go home, right? In the case of head chairs, that can totally be the way to go if you want to make a statement!

I was recently helping an e-design client swap out some pieces for her dining room, and one idea we had to give the room a little bit of a glam factor was to change out the two end chairs for more luxe head chairs. Her side chairs were wood with a padded seat, and I picked out some stunning taupe velvet chairs with fluted wood accents to go at the heads. They changed the whole look of the table and added some sophistication to the style!

Coastal traditional dining room with blue head chairs and woven side chairs

via Lindye Galloway

Keep the height of the head chairs the same height or taller

One thing I think people often overlook when they’re shopping for dining chairs is the overall height. When the chairs arrive, they’re surprised at how tall or short they are in relation to the table. Don’t make that mistake! Pay attention to the height, particularly if you want to mix in different head chairs. Make sure the heights are approximately the same OR it can be nice if they’re taller. Having a height difference adds to that grandness I talked about earlier. The image from Mindy Gayer offers a nice example of that above.

Let’s shop! Here are some ready-made dining chair pairs that you can use in your own home!

Use the links below the image or the tap through the widget to hop over to the sources for these sets. I hope these help you in your search for mix and matched dining chairs!