The furnishings of the dining-room are a mixture of old and new, but this is probably the room that best preserves the atmosphere of Ainola in its original form. The beams in the wall and ceiling are original, and in many places one can still see the axe-marks in the wood. The floors are made of unpainted boards.
The newer furnishings and lamps were bought for the apartment in Kammiokatu (Helsinki) in September-October 1939. Around 70,000 marks (19,000 euros today) were spent on furnishing this rented apartment (area 205 square metres). The functionalist furnishings of the dining-room were bought from the Stockmann department store, and they were designed by the famous designer Werner West (1890-1959). The furniture ended up in Ainola in December 1942, when the Sibeliuses gave up their city apartment. The simple, austere table and the bench in front of the window were designed by Aino Sibelius. She was interested in woodwork and in her early years in Kuopio she had owned a carpenter’s bench. The wall clock had been inherited by Aino Sibelius from her father Alexander. The neo-Baroque cupboard under the clock came from Aino Sibelius’s mother, Elisabeth Järnefelt.
The dining room is dominated by a green fireplace, each tile of which was coloured separately. The locally famous potter Johan Grönroos charged 170 marks (nearly 600 euros today) for the work; he received the payment from Sibelius on 25th August 1904. It was in this fireplace that Sibelius destroyed the drafts for his eighth symphony, and apparently also some of his early works, in the “great burning party” of the 1940s. In the fireplace one can see a pot which was a present from the Paloheimos; in this, the grandchildren used to hide their lumps of chewing gum.
Two fireplace proposals by Lars Sonck and the bill for coloring the bricks from the potter Johan Grönroos.