A Dining Table Is Measured in Chairs

A dining table gets used for far more than dinner. It is where the homework happens, where the laptop lands, and where friends stay talking long after the plates are cleared, so it’s worth choosing one you’d be happy to sit at for hours.

Shape sets the mood. A round table is sociable, since everyone faces everyone, and it softens a square room. A long rectangle is the farmhouse classic and suits a room with length to it. An oval sits between the two, generous but without corners.

Then there is the question of how many people you feed. A table that seats two every night and six at Christmas is a different purchase from one that seats six every night, which is where drop leaves and extending tops come in. The base matters too, since a pedestal leaves room for knees and an extra chair.

Tribesigns Round Dining Table With Open Shelf

A table for two belongs in the corner of a kitchen, the kind of spot where breakfast happens and nobody lays a cloth. The rustic wood-look top on looped black legs has a bistro air, and it would look right with a pair of bentwood or metal cafe chairs. A small round shelf between the legs is a place for a plant or the fruit bowl, which leaves the top clear for coffee.

Tribesigns Solid Wood Round Dining Table

A round table on a single thick pedestal is about the friendliest shape a dining room can have, and this one is solid wood with its knots and grain on show. The tapered base is the feature, so pair it with light chairs that don’t hide it, rattan or slim black metal.

With no legs at the corners, squeezing in an extra chair for a guest is easy. A linen runner and a big bowl in the middle are all the styling it needs.

Tribesigns Oval Sintered Stone Dining Table

A pale stone-look top floats on a dark, sculpted pedestal, and the contrast between the two gives the table the look of a piece from a design showroom. The oval softens a long room and seats people along the curve without anyone getting a corner. It wants chairs with some presence, upholstered in boucle or leather, and a low pendant overhead. With a top like this, no tablecloth is needed to make the table look dressed.

HOMCOM Solid Wood Drop-Leaf Dining Table

Drop leaves are an old idea that suits small homes very well. With both leaves down the table is slim enough to stand against a wall, with one up it seats a couple for dinner, and with both up it becomes a long oval for friends. The pale, natural pine gives it a Scandinavian country look, and it would be lovely with painted chairs in a soft color, sage or blue.

HOMCOM Extendable Dining Table With Storage

Hidden inside the HOMCOM is a cupboard as well as a leaf. The round top pulls apart into an oval when guests come, and the fluted drum of a base has sliding doors, so the napkins, the candles, and the good glasses live inside the table they’ll be used on. In a pale oak tone with small gold handles, it has a soft, modern look, and it suits an apartment where the dining area shares the living room.

SIMPLIHOME Whitley Solid Mango Wood Dining Table

This is the farmhouse table people picture when they say farmhouse table, a thick, long top on chunky trestle legs, in solid mango wood with a dark waxed finish that shows every swirl of grain. It is a table to build a room around, with a bench down one side, mismatched chairs down the other, and a big jug of branches in the middle. Leave it bare, since the wood is the point.

HOMCOM Pine Wood Dining Table

The pine table has a light, Scandinavian look, with slim tapered legs and softly rounded corners. It is the table for a bright kitchen with white walls and a few plants, and it would suit spindle-back chairs in pale wood or black. Because it is so plain, it takes color well, a striped cloth, bright plates, a row of mismatched candlesticks.

Choosing the Size

Measure the room before the table. Each chair needs space behind it to slide back, so mark the tabletop on the floor with tape, pull a chair out from it, and see what is left to walk past. An extending table makes sense when the number of people changes a lot, four on a weeknight and eight at a holiday.