Measuring for a custom dining table

The number that decides your table size is 900mm of clearance behind each chair, and almost every sizing guide online quotes 600mm instead. 600mm lets a person pull a chair out and sit in it. It does not let a second person walk behind them with a plate in each hand, which is what happens at every meal you will ever eat at this table. Get that number right and the rest of the sizing follows.

The clearance rule, and why 600mm is the wrong number

Measure it on yourself. A dining chair pulled out far enough to sit in occupies about 500mm to 600mm behind the table edge. That is the 600mm figure, and it is correct as far as it goes. The problem is that it describes a table nobody is walking around.

At 900mm, a seated person is pushed in and someone else passes behind them without either of them moving. At 750mm they both have to negotiate it. At 600mm the person walking goes the long way around the table instead, every single time, and within a month you will have decided the table is too big for the room. It is not. The clearance is.

Apply it this way:

• 900mm on any side people walk along, which is usually 2 sides and both ends
• 750mm on a side that faces a wall and is only used for seating
• 1,050mm where the route past the table is also the route to a doorway carrying traffic

Everything below follows from that. Your maximum table length is the room length minus 1,800mm. Your maximum width is the room width minus 1,800mm.

Table size by seat count

These are the sizes that work, with the minimum room each one needs at 900mm all round.

| Seats | Table length | Table width | Minimum room length | Minimum room width | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 4 | 1,200mm | 900mm to 1,000mm | 3,000mm | 2,800mm | | 6 | 1,800mm | 950mm to 1,050mm | 3,600mm | 2,850mm | | 8 | 2,400mm | 1,000mm to 1,050mm | 4,200mm | 2,850mm | | 10 | 3,000mm | 1,050mm | 4,800mm | 2,850mm | | 12 | 3,600mm | 1,050mm | 5,400mm | 2,850mm |

Read the minimum room width column again. It barely moves. Room width is what stops most Adelaide dining rooms, not room length: a typical villa dining room at 3,600mm by 3,000mm takes a 1,800mm 6 seater and nothing longer, and it takes it comfortably.

The seat count comes from 600mm of table edge per person. A 1,800mm side divides into 3 seats of 600mm. Add both long sides and you have 6. The ends add 2 more only if the table is 1,000mm or wider and the base does not have legs in the corners.

Width: the 950mm to 1,050mm band

Width is the dimension people get wrong in both directions.

Below 900mm, 2 people seated opposite each other are close enough that a shared centre is impossible. Serving dishes, a board, a bottle and a couple of glasses need roughly 300mm of clear centre strip, and at 850mm wide with 2 place settings you do not have it. The table becomes a bench that food has to be handed across.

Above 1,100mm, you cannot reach the centre from a seat. An adult's comfortable reach across a table is about 550mm to 600mm, so a 1,200mm top has a strip in the middle that only exists to hold a vase. It also adds real money, because a wider top means wider boards, more glue lines and a heavier panel.

950mm to 1,050mm is the band. 1,000mm is the answer if you want a single number to work with. Only go to 1,100mm on a 3,000mm or longer table, where the proportion needs it.

Round tables, and when round beats rectangular

Round tables seat fewer people per square metre than rectangular ones and are still the right answer in a lot of Adelaide rooms.

| Diameter | Seats comfortably | Minimum square room | | --- | --- | --- | | 1,000mm | 4 at a squeeze | 2,800mm | | 1,200mm | 4, or 5 with a pedestal base | 3,000mm | | 1,400mm | 6 | 3,200mm | | 1,600mm | 6 to 8 | 3,400mm | | 1,800mm | 8, but the centre is unreachable | 3,600mm |

The seat count is lower than the circumference suggests because knees converge toward the centre. At 1,200mm diameter the perimeter is nearly 3,800mm, which looks like 6 seats at 600mm each, but 6 sets of legs will not fit underneath. 4 is the honest number.

Round wins when the room is square, when the table sits in a walkway and a corner would be walked into, when the group is 4 to 6 and conversation matters, or when the table sits under a single pendant light. Rectangular wins past 6 seats, against a wall, and any time the table doubles as a work surface.

A pedestal base is close to mandatory on a round table above 1,200mm. Legs at the perimeter of a circle land exactly where knees do.

Test it with tape before you order

This is the step that changes minds, it takes 10 minutes, and it costs the price of a roll of painter's tape.

1. Mask the exact table footprint on the floor. Length and width, corners square.
2. Mask a second rectangle 900mm outside the first on every side. That is the true footprint.
3. Put your existing chairs at the tape line at the seat positions you plan to use.
4. Live with it for 3 days. Walk the route to the kitchen. Carry things past it. Open the doors and drawers of whatever else is in the room.

Nearly everyone who does this changes one dimension. The most common change is going shorter and keeping the width, because the second rectangle turns out to block a doorway. The second most common is going longer, because the room takes far more than expected once the clearance is drawn rather than imagined.

The Adelaide rooms this matters most in

Pre-1940 villas and bungalows have formal dining rooms around 3,600mm by 3,300mm with a chimney breast on one wall and a door in 2 corners. The chimney breast eats 300mm to 400mm of one side, so measure the clear wall-to-wall distance at table height, not at skirting height. The 2 doors mean 2 of your sides carry traffic and need the full 900mm.

Open-plan rear extensions have the opposite problem: enormous floor area, but the dining zone sits on a route between the kitchen and the back door, and often against north-facing glass. Size the table to the zone, not the room, and read caring for solid timber furniture in Adelaide before you place a solid top in direct northern sun.

Extension leaves solve the "6 most nights, 10 at Christmas" problem for $600 to $1,800 depending on the mechanism. They only work if the room has the clearance for the extended size, so tape out both footprints.

Before you order

Confirm the base type, the top thickness and how the top is fixed. A 2,400mm top in solid hardwood weighs 60kg to 90kg, so check your delivery route as part of briefing the maker, and confirm the timing against real Adelaide lead times if the table is for a specific occasion. The measurement stage sits second in the 6 stage commission process, and getting it settled early is what keeps the rest of the job on schedule. On the technical side, Wood Solutions is the Australian industry reference for how species and thickness affect a span.

The sizing, timber and extension options for this piece are covered in full on custom dining tables in Adelaide, and if the room is really a lounge rather than a dining room, custom coffee tables uses the same clearance thinking at a smaller scale.