When it comes to the dining room, how do you determine where you’d like to splurge, and where you’d prefer to save? Recently, we’ve seen many interior designers opt to democratize the dining room, especially when it comes to the dining chairs.

Design blog A Curated Lifestyle calls this phenomenon “Duck Duck Goose” decorating. Writes author Capella Kincheloe, “You can’t get much more democratic than different chairs around a table…Each chair as unique as your guests.”

Decor Demon calls it Group Therapy, perhaps because the author (Movie & A Makeover host/interior designer/blogger Brian Patrick Flynn) transformed a variety of four-legged flea market finds into a bona fide designer dining chair set with paint and fabric alone.

Writes Flynn, We decided “we would group mismatched pieces together, then Tim Gunn it [make it work]. Clever choices mixing do-it-yourself tricks with professional tailoring allowed us to affordably create a dining room in which to have our cake and eat it too.”

Below, a home from Southern Living unifies the dining room’s various chairs with a simple but elegant pleated white slipcover.

We love the idea of mixing it up, especially in the dining room, where you always want to encourage your guests to linger. How do you see this phenomenon working in your home?