Politics, literature, current events, gossip, finances, work, school, plans for the weekend, plans for life: the dinner table is famous for the conversations it provokes when family members gather together for the evening meal.

Though some people prefer to eat facing the television with plates on their laps, not everyone is abandoning the table and the time spent with family and friends around it. In honor of this tradition, the designers of the show house dining rooms created spaces that are both beautiful and comfortable, where elegance does not necessarily mean stiffness and formality, and conversations will be kept alive for years to come.

Designers Valerie Beman Kyros and Melissa Bonney Kane of Inspired Interiors added whimsy to a dining room that combined both casual and formal elements.

"We felt that the house was 'asking' for a classic dining room with a more casual feel for today's lifestyle," explains Valerie. Both designers believed a chinoiserie-style wallpaper would be perfect for the room, and when they found Brunswig & Fils' 'Chinese Landscape" they found the inspiration for their design. "The light, calming colorations combined with a wonderful juxtaposition of warm and cool colors caught our eye and inspired the design of the rest of the room," notes Melissa.

To emphasize the casual aspect of the room, the designers chose a table with light-colored wood tabletop with rubbed birds-egg legs. For whimsy, they covered the ceiling with a wallpaper with a creamy warm background and silver starbursts, which are reflected in the bordered green area rug under the table.

Valerie and Melissa repeated the room's "casual/formal" theme in the window treatments-three layers of sumptuous silks in casual colors: pink silk and cream roman shades framed by two layers of billowing, puddled silk draperies with a pink background and creamy white with embroidered pink polka dots. "What tied them all together, quite literally, were the wonderful silk tassels used as tiebacks. It was all very classic, but fun, and not stuffy."

The window treatments were their favorite part of the room's design. "The wallpaper created the room," explains Melissa, "but the window treatments invited you into the room and immediately softened the feeling of the space; they said, 'Come, sit down a while and enjoy yourself.'"

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Though outdoor dining typically means barbecues, paper plates, and lawn chairs, Janet Swanson and Georgia McGowan of Fiona's Porch took the concept to whole new level by designing an elegant outdoor dining area on a house's veranda. The designers blended the indoors with the outdoors to create a space where entertainment could easily range from formal summer dinner parties or casual get-togethers.

"The lines of this house were so fabulous it reminded me of the turn-of- the-century beach homes," says Janet. "It was relaxed, but a little bit formal, and so I just started thinking of that whole era and translated that with a contemporary feel."

The designers gave the veranda the personality of a room by bringing elements of the inside to the outside and making the space very comfortable. Using a color palette of espresso chocolate and soft blues, they brought the space together, softened it with throw pillows, and incorporated accessories that would work both on the inside and outside, such as the rod iron chandelier over the dining table. "During an evening with a soft breeze you light those candles and it gives really great atmosphere," says Georgia.

The result is a place where the homeowner can look out to partial views of the nearby Atlantic Ocean, enjoy coffee when the sun is coming up, relax and read a book, or entertain guests at an evening soiree. "It could run the whole gamut of being very relaxed and very casual, or step it up a notch and be more elegant. It could do all of that," says Georgia. "Whatever the mood strikes, you could do it."

The challenge for designer Penelope Daborn was just how to incorporate contemporary furniture from the Thomas Moser collection into a traditional dining room. "Because the Thomas Moser furniture has crisp lines I tried to be fairly lush in terms of the window treatment," explains Penelope, who also juxtaposed new and old styles by laying the table with a combination of traditional porcelain pieces and contemporary glassware, upholstering the modern chairs in a rich velvet fabric, hanging contemporary artwork on walls that retained the home's historic architectural details, and topping it all off with flowers and candles—items that work in any time period—to create an intimate dinner-party setting.

"There have to be a few pieces that will bring everything together if you're going to take the risk of mixing periods," explains Penelope. She discovered the perfect piece when she found a chandelier of capiz shells at the Boston Design Center. "I was glad to find it because I wanted something with some drama," she says. "I didn't want a traditional chandelier, but I did want something that would be able to transition between traditional and contemporary, and I thought that did that very nicely," she says. "I love it, it's a beautiful fixture." A simple, round mirror-another piece that could easily fit into multiple designs—reflects the chandelier's light.

She says the design demonstrates that people can hold onto the family heirlooms they love but also branch out into an edgier design. "I think it's more reflective of life," Penelope says. "There's beauty in so many things, and I think it's a shame to limit it to one look if you can avoid it."

The dining room designed by Michaele Boehm and Kacey Graham used to house a huge rectangle table with "a million leaves" where the large family almost spilled over into adjoining rooms, according to a family member. But the designers decided to use a round table instead—a shape they felt promoted conversation. "There's no one person who's controlling," Kacey explains. "It's not quite so formal and that allows conversation to flow and keep going."

The designers repeated that round shape in a blend of unique objects throughout the room: the mirror, window treatment, pedestal, chandelier, a glass bell jar, an oversize acorn in the middle of the table on a bed of moss on brown and white transferware used in the table setting, which is from Michaele's own collection. "It was truly collected over time, and each piece has its own story," says Kasey. Brass candles are attached to each plate creating an unexpected touch of elegance. "I think it's the collection of things that are a little bit different that generally make our rooms stand out a little bit," says Kasey.

The simple brown and white color scheme and careful collection of unique objects both reflect the mother and daughter team's mantra of designing "a well-edited classically elegant space," says Kasey, "It's really pared down and it's edited," which can be challenging, she explains, because every detail matters. "When you really do these sort of simplistic color palette rooms, you really have to pay attention to the details and the texture."