Dining Room Storage Ideas: Sizing the Cabinet to the Room

Dining room storage articles usually start with what to put in the cabinet. That is the wrong end. In most Australian homes the dining room is not a room at all, it is the far third of an open plan space, and the question that decides everything is whether a 45cm deep cabinet can go on that wall without someone having to breathe in to get past a seated guest.

So this one runs the other way: clearance first, then height, then the cabinet, then what goes in it. Get the first two right and the rest is easy. Get them wrong and you own a beautiful sideboard that everybody bumps into.

Key Takeaways

• Allow 100cm from the table edge to the cabinet face so a chair can push back and someone can walk behind.
• Every sideboard here is 45cm to 46cm deep, so it costs you nearly half a metre of that clearance.
• Sideboard heights split into three bands against the fixed 76cm table height, and the band changes what the piece is for.
• A console at 36cm to 38cm deep is the answer for a wall too shallow for a sideboard.
• Wide shallow drawers hold linen and cutlery, cabinets hold stacked plates. Match the piece to what you actually own.

The Clearance Number That Decides Everything

Every Cedora dining table is 76cm high, and every one of them needs the same clearances around it. Three numbers matter:

• 75cm from the table edge to the nearest obstacle, which is just enough to push a chair back and stand up
• 100cm if someone needs to walk behind a person who is seated and eating
• 120cm if that walkway is also the main route through the room

Now add the cabinet. A Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard is 46cm deep. Against a wall, with a 190cm x 90cm table centred in the room, you need 90cm of table depth plus two lots of 100cm walkway plus 46cm of cabinet, which is 336cm of room depth before anything else is considered.

That is the sum most people do not do, and it is why so many dining rooms end up with the sideboard in the hallway.

Height Tells You What the Piece Is For

The dining table is fixed at 76cm. Every cabinet in the room is read against that line, and the sideboards here fall into three bands. The Richmond 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard at 65cm sits below it. Both Liverpool cabinets, the 180cm 2 Door 3 Drawer and the 130cm 2 Door 2 Drawer, land exactly level at 76cm. The Oxford 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard at 85cm and the Byron 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard at 86cm both sit above it, at serving height.

Choose the band by what the room actually does. A household that entertains wants 85cm. A household that eats and needs the cabinet to disappear wants 76cm or 65cm. We took the height question apart in more detail in how tall should a sideboard be for a dining room.

Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard

When the Wall Is Too Shallow for a Sideboard

This is the common case in a townhouse or an apartment, and the fix is a console rather than a smaller sideboard. The Liverpool and Oxford consoles are 150cm wide and only 36cm to 38cm deep at 76cm high. The Byron and Richmond consoles are 120 x 38 x 82.5cm.

Eight to ten centimetres of depth does not sound like a rescue until you put it back into the walkway. Swapping a 46cm sideboard for a 38cm console returns 8cm to the space behind the chairs, which is often the difference between 92cm of clearance and 100cm.

You lose cabinet volume, obviously. A console holds linen, placemats, candles and the serving pieces you use weekly. It will not hold a dinner service. That is a real trade, and in a tight room it is usually the right one.

Drawers or Doors, Decided by What You Own

The internal layout is where sideboards genuinely differ, and the numbers are worth reading before you choose.

The Oxford runs a single drawer 87.4cm wide but only 17.8cm high inside, over four doors. That drawer is exactly right for table linen laid flat and for a full cutlery canteen, and it is the widest drawer in the range. The Liverpool 2 Door 3 Drawer takes the opposite approach: three drawers at 53.8 x 36.9 x 21.6cm, which suits sorting into categories rather than laying things flat.

Behind doors you get height, and height is what stacked plates need. A stack of eight dinner plates is roughly 20cm tall, a stack of bowls more. Nothing 17.8cm high will take them, so a household storing a full dinner service needs cabinet space, not more drawers. We listed what actually fits in what to store in a sideboard, and the drawer width differences in one drawer here is 87cm wide, another is 54cm.

A simple way to decide: write down the three bulkiest things you want to put away. If two of them stack, you need doors. If two of them lie flat, you need wide drawers.

Liverpool Pine 2 Door 2 Drawer Sideboard - Natural

Storage That Is Not a Cabinet

Three additions do a disproportionate amount of work in a dining space.

The wall above. A shelf at 140cm to 150cm takes serving platters, which are flat, awkward and rarely used, and gets them out of the cabinet where the daily items live. Keep the shelf shallow at 20cm to 25cm so nobody hits their head standing up from a chair.

A bench instead of two chairs. A bench pushes fully under the table when the room is not in use, which returns its whole footprint to the walkway. It is the only seating that gives space back.

Deciding what is not dining storage. The reason dining cabinets overflow is that they end up holding board games, chargers, school paperwork and batteries. That is fine, but it has to be a decision, because the moment the sideboard is the household junk drawer the dinner service migrates back to a kitchen cupboard and the cabinet has failed at its job.

A Working Order for the Whole Decision

1. Measure the room depth and subtract the table depth and two walkways. What is left is your maximum cabinet depth.
2. Measure the longest wall with no door swing, no low window sill and no power point you need to keep clear. That is your maximum cabinet width.
3. Decide whether you serve from the cabinet. If yes, 85cm. If no, 76cm or lower.
4. List the three bulkiest items you want stored. Stacking items mean doors, flat items mean wide drawers.
5. Only now choose the piece.

Done in that order it is a twenty minute job with a tape measure. Done in the other order it is a return.

Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Black

Frequently Asked Questions

How much space do you need between a dining table and a sideboard?

One hundred centimetres from the table edge to the face of the cabinet if anyone needs to walk behind a seated guest. Seventy five centimetres is the absolute minimum for pushing a chair back and standing up, and 120cm if that gap is the main route through the room.

How deep is a dining room sideboard?

Every sideboard in this range is 45cm to 46cm deep. If the wall cannot give that up, a console table at 36cm to 38cm deep returns 8cm to the walkway, at the cost of cabinet volume.

What height should a dining room sideboard be?

Eighty five to eighty six centimetres if you serve from it, because that is comfortable working height against a 76cm table. Seventy six centimetres if you want the cabinet top to continue the line of the table. Sixty five centimetres reads as low storage and is awkward to serve from.

Should a sideboard have drawers or doors?

Doors for anything that stacks, because a stack of eight dinner plates is around 20cm tall and no sideboard drawer here is that high inside. Wide shallow drawers for anything that lies flat, such as table linen, placemats and cutlery.

What size sideboard for a dining room?

Roughly two thirds to three quarters of the length of the table, sitting on a wall with no door swing or low window sill. Against a 190cm table that means a 130cm to 160cm cabinet, and against a 240cm table a 180cm one.