Why the Farmhouse Range Is the Tallest Furniture in the Catalogue

Farmhouse is one of those words that gets attached to almost anything with a timber top. It is worth ignoring the word for a minute and looking at how the eleven pieces in this range are actually built, because they share two construction decisions and both of them change a room.

The first is that every visible surface is acacia timber and every frame is painted white. The second is that nothing sits on the floor. Every single piece stands on legs, and that is why this is the tallest furniture in the catalogue.

Key Takeaways

• Eleven pieces, all Oxford, covering dining and living and no bedroom at all.
• Acacia timber on every surface you touch, painted white on every frame you do not.
• Every piece stands on legs, so floor runs continuously under all of it.
• The TV unit is 60cm and the sideboard 85cm, both the tallest of their type here.
• The console is 36cm deep, the narrowest in the catalogue by 2cm.

Two Materials, and Each One Has a Job

Pick up any piece in the range and the split is obvious. The Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard has acacia doors, an acacia drawer front and an acacia top, sitting in a white painted carcass on white painted legs. The Oxford Acacia TV Unit does the same thing at 180 x 45 x 60cm.

That division is not decorative. Timber goes where hands and plates and remote controls go, because timber takes wear and can be wiped without showing it. Paint goes on the structure, where nothing touches, and it is what keeps a room full of solid acacia from reading as heavy.

Ten of the eleven pieces follow the rule. The exception is the Oxford Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2, which is a white timber frame with a grey upholstered seat and no visible acacia at all. In a room where the table top is a metre of pale timber, chairs that add more of it would be too much, so the chairs stay quiet.

Everything Stands on Legs

The case pieces sit on splayed white legs that angle out from the carcass. The dining tables and the coffee table use an A frame trestle base with a stretcher running between the feet. Different shapes, same principle: you can see the floor underneath every piece in the range.

That does more for a small Australian living room than any colour choice. A floor that runs uninterrupted from one wall to the other reads as a bigger floor, and the eye stops registering the furniture as a solid block along the edge of the room. In a 3.5 metre wide living area, that is the difference between full and furnished.

It also makes a real difference on a Saturday. A vacuum head goes under a piece on legs and does not go under a plinth. So does a robot vacuum, a lost sock and a tennis ball. Furniture on legs is furniture you clean around rather than furniture you move.

Which Is Why It Is the Tallest in the Catalogue

Lifting a carcass off the floor adds its height to the whole piece, and the numbers show it. The Oxford TV unit is 60cm high. Every other TV unit in the catalogue sits at 55cm or 56cm. The Oxford sideboard is 85cm, against 76cm for one range and 65cm for another.

For the sideboard that is a straight win. At 85cm it is within 5cm of a kitchen bench, so you serve from it standing rather than stooping, and it is 9cm above the dining table it sits beside. Christmas lunch with the food on the sideboard and the table free is exactly what that height is for.

For the TV unit it is a decision to make rather than a feature to enjoy. At 60cm plus the height of the television, the screen centre ends up higher than the ideal seated eye line for a low sofa. If your couch is deep and low, wall mounting above this unit is the better answer. If it is a firmer, higher seat, the extra height is fine.

The Dining End

Two tables. The Oxford Acacia Dining Table 190cm is 90cm across and the Oxford Acacia Dining Table 240cm is 100cm, both 76cm high like every other dining table here. The trestle base means the legs sit well in from the corners, so a person on the end of the table is not straddling a leg.

The 100cm width on the larger table is the number worth noticing. Ten centimetres of extra depth across the middle is where the serving dishes go on a night when eight people are eating, and it is the difference between a centre of the table you can use and one that is permanently occupied by a fruit bowl nobody can reach past.

Chairs come as a set of two at 46.8 x 55 x 88.7cm, with the upholstered seat that keeps the room from becoming all timber. The 240cm table with eight chairs is the complete version of the arrangement, and buying it that way is the only route to eight matching chairs at once.

The Living End

The Oxford Acacia Coffee Table is 130 x 70 x 45cm, which is the same footprint as the coffee tables in two other ranges and the standard this catalogue works to. What is not standard is the base: it repeats the dining table's A frame at a smaller scale, so a living and dining area furnished from this range reads as one idea rather than two.

The Oxford Acacia Console Table is 150 x 36 x 76cm and is the narrowest console in the catalogue, 2cm slimmer than the next one. In an Australian hallway around a metre wide, those 2cm are not nothing: they are the last of the clearance you need to get past with a laundry basket.

The Oxford Acacia Side Table finishes the room at 55 x 55 x 58cm, the same square footprint every side table here uses. Beside a sofa it sits at arm height, and in a spare bedroom it doubles as a bedside table, which is the closest this range gets to a bedroom at all.

Where the Range Stops

There is no bed, no bedside table, no chest, no tallboy and no mirror. Eleven pieces, all of them dining and living. If you want this look through a whole house you will be mixing ranges, and the acacia here will not match the timber in a bedroom range exactly, because it is a different species finished a different way.

That is less of a problem than it sounds. Bedrooms are the one part of a house nobody sees in the same glance as the dining table, so a change of range at the bedroom door is invisible in practice. What matters is that the rooms people move between in one line of sight stay consistent.

Within its own territory the range is complete: you can furnish an entire open plan dining and living level from these eleven pieces without buying a single thing from anywhere else. The farmhouse range is small on purpose, and every piece in it is doing a job the others do not.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the farmhouse range made of?

Solid acacia on every visible surface, over a painted white frame, with an MDF back panel on the sideboard and TV unit. The timber is where you touch the piece and the paint is where you do not, which is the whole design in one sentence.

Why is farmhouse furniture taller than other ranges?

Because it stands on legs rather than a plinth. The TV unit is 60cm high against 55cm to 56cm elsewhere in the catalogue, and the sideboard is 85cm against 65cm to 76cm. Lifting a carcass off the floor adds height to the whole piece.

Does furniture on legs make a room look bigger?

It genuinely helps. You can see floor running underneath every piece in this range, and a continuous floor reads as a larger room than one interrupted by furniture sitting flush to the skirting. In a small living room it is worth more than the colour is.

What sizes does the farmhouse dining table come in?

Two. The 190cm is 90cm across and the 240cm is 100cm across, both 76cm high on an A frame trestle base. The 240cm seats eight and the 190cm six, and both are sold on their own or in a set with chairs.

Does the farmhouse range include bedroom furniture?

No. All eleven pieces are dining and living: table, chairs, sideboard, TV unit, coffee table, console and side table. If you want the same look in a bedroom you would be mixing in a different range, and the timber tone will not match exactly.