Original Art for the Dining Room

Original paintings for the dining room, hand-painted and signed by living artists, each one of a kind and shipped free and fully insured with a 14-day home trial.

What makes good dining room art?

Good dining room art is a conversation piece: a work with enough ambiguity or tension that guests can disagree about it pleasantly for a whole dinner. The dining room is the one space where people face each other for an hour with no television, so the art on the wall gets discussed rather than glanced at. This is where we send buyers toward bolder choices than they would make for a bedroom. A strange, beautiful work from our surrealism collection earns its keep at a dinner table in a way a safe beige abstract never will. The honest tradeoff: a real conversation piece will divide your guests, and that is the point. If everyone agrees the painting is nice, nobody talks about it.

The Gift of Wonder: Original Oil on Canvas by Phaedra | VanArtHub, an original painting in the Canadian Dining Room Art collection
The Gift of Wonder: Original Oil on Canvas by Phaedra | VanArtHub · $761.00

What size art goes over a sideboard?

Over a sideboard or buffet, choose a horizontal work about two-thirds to three-quarters of the furniture's width, with the centre of the canvas 145 cm (57 in) from the floor. Horizontal formats echo the long lines of the table and the sideboard, which is why they feel settled in dining rooms while tall verticals can feel like visitors. Wide pieces from our landscape paintings are natural fits here.

Sideboard widthIdeal art widthIn inches
152 cm (60 in)100 to 115 cm39 to 45 in
183 cm (72 in)120 to 137 cm47 to 54 in
213 cm (84 in)140 to 160 cm55 to 63 in

If the wall has no furniture under it, size to the wall instead and go larger than feels safe; empty dining room walls forgive scale generously.

How do candle-light and dimmers change how art reads?

Low warm light shifts every colour in the room toward amber, so a painting bought under bright daylight can become a different work at dinner. Warm palettes deepen beautifully by candle-light: reds glow, golds turn molten, browns gain weight. Cool blues and greys lose the most, going muted and sometimes muddy. Our advice is simple and rarely followed: before you commit, look at the painting at night under the actual lights you dine by, dimmed to the level you actually use. This is one of the quiet reasons we offer a 14-day home trial; a dining room painting has to pass the 8 p.m. test, and no product photo can take that test for you.

Tinsel & Tiny Joys: Original Oil on Canvas by Phaedra | VanArtHub, an original painting in the Canadian Dining Room Art collection
Tinsel & Tiny Joys: Original Oil on Canvas by Phaedra | VanArtHub · $798.00

How do you choose a dining room conversation piece?

Choose the work that made you stop and frown for a second, not the one that matched the curtains. A dining room can absorb more strangeness than any other room because guests encounter the painting socially, with wine, in company. Buy the piece with a story: the odd portrait, the dreamlike scene, the abstraction that looks different from each chair. Every work we sell is a signed original with a Certificate of Authenticity, which gives the conversation somewhere to go beyond the image itself. And because taste sharpens with years of dinners, our Lifetime Trade-Back lets you trade the piece for store credit when you outgrow it. If you want a second opinion before choosing, our art advisory service exists for exactly this room.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see what a painting looks like on my own dining room wall before I buy it?

Yes. Upload a photo of the wall to our Art in Your Room tool and it places a specific painting on it at true scale, so you can judge the size against the sideboard and the table. It is the fastest way to rule out pieces that are too small, which is the usual error in this room. The 14-day home trial then settles it in your real light.

Is the dining room selection all oil and acrylic, or do you have mixed media too?

There is more mixed media in this group than in most of our lists. Alongside oil on canvas and acrylic on canvas, you will find acrylic and ink on canvas, acrylic with oil and pen on canvas, and colored pencil on artboard. The mixed pieces reward a closer look, which suits a room where people sit for an hour. Phaedra's colored pencil work sits at the quietest end.

What mistake do people make most often when buying art for a dining room?

Matching the painting to the furniture. Buyers pick a piece that repeats the wood tone of the table or the fabric on the chairs, then change the chairs three years later and the painting looks stranded. Choose a work you would happily move to the living room instead. Every piece here is one of a kind, so it should outlive the dining set rather than decorate it.

What happens if the painting I am thinking about sells to someone else first?

It is gone, because every piece is a one of a kind original that nobody can repaint. The page does stay online in our sold archive permanently, so you can still see the work and send it to us as a reference. Tell us what you liked about it and we will point you to close work by the same artist, such as Phaedra, Roshan, or Melina Ghaemi.

What does a typical dining room piece cost here, not the full range?

The middle of this collection sits near $330, which buys a mid-size original by one of our artists. The full span runs from about $200 to about $1,550. The lower end is mostly colored pencil on artboard, and the top end is the larger oils on canvas. Shipping is free and fully insured going out, and we pay it coming back during the trial, so the listed price is what you pay.

The piece I like is too small for the wall above my table. What are my options?

Three of them. Look at the larger canvases in this group, which reach about 120 cm wide and 120 cm tall. Hang two smaller works as a pair, which suits Phaedra's colored pencil pieces because they share a size and a palette. Or write to us and we will ask the artist about a commission at a larger size, working from the piece you already like.

What kind of art works best in a dining room?

A conversation piece works best: a painting with enough ambiguity that guests can happily disagree about it over dinner. The dining room is where people sit facing each other for an hour, so choose bolder work than you would for a bedroom. Surreal and figurative pieces thrive here.

What size painting goes above a sideboard?

Choose a work about two-thirds to three-quarters of the sideboard's width, centred 145 cm (57 in) from the floor. For a common 183 cm (72 in) sideboard, that means a painting roughly 120 to 137 cm wide. On an empty wall with no furniture, size up to the wall itself.

Should dining room art be horizontal or vertical?

Horizontal formats suit dining rooms best because they echo the long lines of the table and sideboard. Vertical works still succeed as pairs flanking a doorway or window. A single tall vertical over a wide buffet tends to look stranded, so match the format to the furniture line.

How should I light art in a dining room?

Put the art lighting on a dimmer and judge the painting at your usual dinner brightness, not showroom brightness. Warm low light deepens reds, golds, and browns and mutes cool blues and greys. A painting that will live by candle-light should be tested by candle-light before you commit.

How much does original dining room art cost?

Sideboard-scale original paintings mostly fall between the mid hundreds and low thousands, and our collection starts around $72 for small works. Every piece is hand-painted, signed, and one of a kind, with free fully insured shipping across Canada and the USA and a 14-day home trial.

Do candles damage paintings over time?

Occasional candles a safe distance away are fine; heavy nightly candle use deposits soot on everything in the room, paintings included. Keep open flames well clear of the wall, ventilate the room, and if you burn candles at every meal, favour glazed works that can be wiped clean.

When should I not buy a conversation piece?

Skip the challenging painting if the dining room doubles as your daily homework and breakfast space, because a work chosen to provoke guests can wear on you at 7 a.m. In a hard-working family room, choose something warm you love outright, and save the strange piece for later.

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