Refreshing a High-Traffic Dining Hall at Northfield Mount Hermon School

When North­field Mount Her­mon School set out to update its din­ing hall, the focus was on replac­ing well-used fur­ni­ture and mak­ing the space work bet­ter for every­day use. It didn’t call for a full rein­ven­tion, but rather a prac­ti­cal refresh for well-loved space. 

The exist­ing sol­id wood fur­ni­ture had held up over time, but years of dai­ly use had tak­en a toll. The school want­ed to replace it with some­thing equal­ly durable, while improv­ing how the space func­tioned for stu­dents and staff. 

Work­ing along­side Meri­wether God­sey, Old Domin­ion Fur­ni­ture Co. sup­port­ed the project from ear­ly plan­ning to deliv­ery, help­ing turn a worn, high-traf­fic din­ing hall into a more flex­i­ble and effi­cient space.

A Referral Built on Trust

The project came through a famil­iar con­nec­tion. North­field Mount Hermon’s food ser­vice team reached out to Meri­wether God­sey for sup­port sourc­ing both equip­ment and fur­ni­ture. Based on a pre­vi­ous suc­cess­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion at Vir­ginia The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, Meri­wether God­sey intro­duced Old Domin­ion Fur­ni­ture Co. as the right man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner.

That pri­or expe­ri­ence helped stream­line the process from the start. There was already con­fi­dence in ODFC’s abil­i­ty to han­dle both the prod­uct and the plan­ning work need­ed to move the project for­ward.

The Challenge: No Floor Plan, and a Space That Needed to Do More

The din­ing hall itself pre­sent­ed a few imme­di­ate chal­lenges. While the exist­ing fur­ni­ture had per­formed well, it was ready to be replaced after years of con­stant use. At the same time, the school didn’t have a usable floor plan or scal­able draw­ings to guide the next phase.

That meant the team couldn’t sim­ply swap in new tables and chairs. They need­ed to step back and under­stand how the space was being used day to day, and how it could be improved.

The din­ing hall serves pri­mar­i­ly as a stu­dent space, but it also sup­ports a range of oth­er func­tions through­out the year. The new lay­out need­ed to account for both, max­i­miz­ing seat­ing capac­i­ty while still allow­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty.

Starting from Scratch: Building the Plan

With­out a floor plan to work from, the first step was gath­er­ing accu­rate infor­ma­tion. ODFC worked with the school to col­lect pho­tos and as-built mea­sure­ments, turn­ing those inputs into a detailed CAD lay­out.

That process cre­at­ed a clear foun­da­tion for deci­sion-mak­ing. Instead of guess­ing at quan­ti­ties or spac­ing, the team could now eval­u­ate real options based on the actu­al dimen­sions of the room.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion between North­field Mount Her­mon, Meri­wether God­sey, and ODFC kept things mov­ing effi­cient­ly. Ques­tions were answered quick­ly, and the project pro­gressed with­out unnec­es­sary back-and-forth.

Designing for Flow, Capacity, and Everyday Use

With a work­ing lay­out in place, the focus shift­ed to how the space could per­form bet­ter.

ODFC devel­oped mul­ti­ple lay­out options, each aimed at bal­anc­ing seat­ing capac­i­ty with usabil­i­ty. The goal was to cre­ate a thought­ful com­bi­na­tion of fur­ni­ture that made sense for how stu­dents actu­al­ly use the space.

The final plan com­bined two pri­ma­ry table types:

• 30” x 96” rec­tan­gu­lar tables, seat­ing up to eight stu­dents
  
• 60” round tables, seat­ing up to eight stu­dents

This mix allowed for both larg­er group seat­ing and more flex­i­ble arrange­ments, improv­ing flow with­out over­com­pli­cat­ing the lay­out.

Just as impor­tant­ly, the school main­tained the sol­id-wood stan­dard they were used to, ensur­ing the new fur­ni­ture would hold up in the same demand­ing envi­ron­ment.

Efficient Decision-Making and a Coordinated Delivery

After final­iz­ing the lay­out, the team kept momen­tum by mak­ing clear, deci­sive selec­tions based on chair and table­top sam­ples. With a sin­gle direc­tion estab­lished, the project moved clean­ly into pro­duc­tion with­out delays.

That same focus car­ried through to deliv­ery. Instal­la­tion need­ed to hap­pen with­out dis­rupt­ing school oper­a­tions, so ODFC coor­di­nat­ed ship­ping around win­ter break. Three stag­gered ship­ments made it eas­i­er for the school’s team to man­age unload­ing and instal­la­tion with­out over­whelm­ing the site.

A Result That Speaks for Itself

The project came togeth­er as planned, with the updat­ed space deliv­er­ing a clean, cohe­sive look and improved func­tion­al­i­ty for day-to-day use. On-site feed­back reflect­ed that suc­cess, with a pho­tog­ra­ph­er remark­ing how well it all came togeth­er. 

The project also con­tributed to ODFC’s ongo­ing part­ner­ship with Meri­wether God­sey, which has since con­tin­ued across addi­tion­al projects.