The natural or black question is unusual because for once you are not comparing two products. It is the same table, the same joinery, the same dimensions to the millimetre. Only the finish changes, which makes it the purest decision in the whole catalogue and, oddly, the one people agonise over longest. Worth knowing before you start: black is not offered everywhere. Thirty-three pieces carry it, and all of them come from two ranges. Choosing the finish quietly chooses a lot of other things too. Key Takeaways Black is offered on 33 pieces, all of them Liverpool or Richmond. The black and natural versions of a piece are dimensionally identical. Black defines an outline and anchors a bright room. Natural carries light and recedes. Black shows dust sooner. Natural shows dents sooner. Mixing the two works because nothing but the colour changes between them. Black Exists in Two Ranges Only Twenty of the black pieces are Liverpool and thirteen are Richmond. Every other Cedora range comes in one finish: Byron, Oxford, London, Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle have no black option at all. That changes the order you should make decisions in. If black is non-negotiable for you, the range question is already answered, and the real choice is between Liverpool's forty-piece whole-home spread and Richmond's dining-focused twenty seven with its bench seating. Everything else drops out of consideration. It also means black covers different rooms depending on which you pick. Liverpool's black reaches the bedroom, with bed frames, bedside tables, a tallboy, a chest and a mirror all available in it. Richmond's black stops at the dining and living rooms, because that is where the range stops. [products-of-collection collection="black-furniture" heading="Every Cedora Piece Offered in Black" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-black-1"] What Black Does to a Bright Australian Room Our light is the reason this decision plays out differently here than it does in a European catalogue. Through most of the year an Australian living room takes hard, high-angle light for a good part of the day, and pale timber under that light flattens. The grain washes out, the edges lose definition, and a beautiful table can look like a bench top by two in the afternoon. Black does the opposite. It reads as an outline rather than a surface, so the shape of the piece is what you see, and strong light sharpens it instead of bleaching it. Against blonde floorboards or a pale rug, a black table draws a clean line through the room and gives everything else something to sit against. Where it goes wrong is a room that is already dark. A south-facing dining room with dark floors and one small window does not need more weight in it, and black furniture there stops being a feature and starts being a shadow. Check the floor first: pale floor, black works; dark floor, think harder. Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural What Natural Does to a Small One Natural timber is the better answer more often than the photographs suggest, because photographs are taken in large rooms. In a compact space, a pale finish lets furniture recede into the walls rather than punctuating them, and the room reads as bigger than the floor plan says. It also handles a room with a lot of other things going on. If you have a rug with a pattern, art on the walls and open shelving, black furniture adds another strong element to a room that is already busy. Natural steps back and lets the rest of it work. The third argument is longevity of taste rather than material. A natural timber table has looked correct in Australian homes for eighty years and will look correct in twenty more. Black is a stronger position, and stronger positions are the ones people tire of first. That is not a reason to avoid it, but it is worth being honest with yourself about how long you intend to keep the piece. The Maintenance Difference Nobody Mentions Both finishes are easy. They are just easy in different ways, and knowing which annoyance you are signing up for is more useful than a general reassurance. Black shows dust within a day or two, particularly on a horizontal surface in raking afternoon light. It shows fingerprints around handles and it shows the fine lint that comes off tea towels. None of it is damage and all of it wipes off, but if you are the sort of person who notices these things you will be wiping more often. Natural shows the opposite. Dust more or less disappears on it, but a dent, a scratch or a ring is more visible because there is no dark tone to absorb the shadow. The saving grace is grain: on a timber surface with real figure, small marks blend into the pattern within a few weeks, which is why a natural table tends to look better at three years than it did at three months. Black Natural Ranges offered in Liverpool, Richmond All eight ranges Pieces available 33 128 In a bright room Sharpens, defines the outline Can flatten under hard light In a small room Adds visual weight Recedes, keeps the space open Shows sooner Dust, fingerprints, lint Dents, scratches, rings Hides better Small dents and knocks Dust and everyday grime Mixing Them Is Allowed, and It Works Because the black and natural versions of a piece are geometrically identical, mixing them is a genuinely safe plan rather than a risk. A black Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Black with a natural Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard reads as deliberate, because every other visual signal in the room agrees: same leg frame, same proportions, same detailing. The usual approach that works is to put black on the piece you want noticed and natural on the pieces that support it. A black dining table with natural chairs. A black TV unit against a wall with a natural coffee table in front of the sofa. What does not work is a fifty-fifty split, which reads as indecision rather than contrast. One practical footnote. The Richmond end table is currently offered in natural only, so a fully black Richmond living room will have one piece that breaks the run. In a mixed scheme that is invisible. In an all-black one it is worth planning around. [products-of-collection collection="richmond" heading="Richmond, in Both Finishes" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-black-2"] How to Decide in Your Own Room Stand in the room at the time of day you use it most and look at the floor. If it is pale timber, polished concrete or light tile, black furniture will define itself against it and the room can carry the contrast. If the floor is dark timber or a dark carpet, natural is doing you a favour. Then look at the walls. White or off-white walls give black something to push against. Warm greige or a deeper colour already carries visual weight, and adding black on top usually makes a room feel heavier than anyone intended. And if you genuinely cannot decide, buy the table in the finish you keep returning to and let the storage pieces follow later. The black range and the natural version of the same piece will still both be there, and a room assembled over two years with one clear anchor almost always looks better than one bought in a single afternoon. Frequently Asked Questions Which Cedora ranges come in black? Only Liverpool and Richmond. That is 33 pieces in total, twenty from Liverpool and thirteen from Richmond. The other six ranges are offered in their single finish only, so choosing black also chooses your range. Is the black version a different product? No. It is the same piece with a different finish, so every dimension is identical. A black Richmond 240cm table and a natural one are both W2400 x D1000 x H760 (mm). Does black furniture make a room look smaller? It makes furniture look more defined, which reads as smaller in a cramped room and as anchored in a large one. Against pale floorboards, black draws a clean outline. In a narrow room with dark floors it can close the space in. Which finish shows marks more? Different marks. Black shows dust, fingerprints and lint sooner. Natural shows dents and scratches sooner, though its grain hides small ones well. Neither is harder to look after, they just fail differently. Can I mix natural and black in the same room? Yes, and it works better here than most places because the shapes are identical across both finishes. A black table with a natural sideboard reads as a decision rather than an accident, since nothing else about the two pieces disagrees. Related Posts Liverpool or Richmond? The Bench Decides It More Often Than the Table Does Richmond Collection Room by Room: Dining Tables and Bench Seating How to Mix Wood Tones: A Designer Guide to Coordinating Finishes Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Read more
There are 33 pieces of black furniture in this catalogue and they behave differently from every other group in it. Black is not a range and it is not a style. It is a finish that runs across two ranges and stops dead at the edge of them. What that means in practice is that you can furnish three entire rooms in it, and the moment you want a fourth thing, the answer is often no. Here is exactly what black covers, room by room, and the two places where it runs out. Key Takeaways Thirty three black pieces: 20 from Liverpool and 13 from Richmond, and nothing else. A complete black bedroom exists, and every piece of it is Liverpool. The dining room is the only one where both ranges give you a choice. Both coffee tables are 45cm high, but the sideboards are 11cm apart. Six of the eight ranges have no black version of any piece. Thirty Three Pieces, Two Ranges, Three Rooms The split is 20 Liverpool and 13 Richmond. Between them they cover bed frames, bedside tables, chests, tallboys, mirrors, dining tables, dining chairs, benches, sideboards, consoles, coffee tables, TV units and a side table. On paper that is a whole house. Underneath the finish, both ranges are the same construction they are in natural: Liverpool is a solid pine frame with an oak veneer, Richmond is oak legs on a pine structure. Nothing is built differently to take the dark finish, which is why the black pieces carry the same dimensions as their pale twins to the millimetre. The grain still shows, and that is worth knowing before you order. This is not a painted flat black, it is a dark finish over open grained timber, so the surface reads as timber that happens to be black rather than as a lacquered panel. In direct Australian sun the grain is clearly visible from across a room. The Black Bedroom Is Liverpool, and Only Liverpool Seven pieces make a complete bedroom, and every one of them comes from the same range. The Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Black carries an upholstered headboard and footboard panel set into a black timber frame, which is the detail that keeps a dark bed from reading as a slab. Around it sit the Liverpool Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table - Black at 60 x 45 x 55.9cm, the Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Black at 140 x 45 x 85cm and the Liverpool Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy - Black at 100 x 45 x 100cm. The chest drawers are 24.6cm deep inside, the deepest in the catalogue in any finish. The Liverpool Pine Mirror - Black finishes it: a 90cm circle, 4cm deep, hung rather than rested. A round black mirror on a pale wall above a black chest is the single most effective thing you can do with this range, because the wall does the lifting and the furniture does not have to. Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Black [products-of-collection collection="black-furniture" heading="Every Piece Offered in Black" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-black26-1"] The Dining Room Is the One With a Choice This is the only room where black gives you two genuinely different options. The Liverpool Pine Dining Table 190cm - Black sits on a solid panel base with softly rounded edges. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Black sits on an open frame that you can see through and under. That difference matters more in black than it does in natural. A dark solid base reads as a block of shadow under the table, and in a smaller dining room it can make the whole piece feel heavier than it is. An open frame in the same finish keeps the floor visible underneath, which is the reason the Richmond version handles a tight room better. Richmond also brings the only black bench in the catalogue. The Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Black pushes fully under the table because it is 40cm deep against a chair's 62cm, and in black, tucked in, it effectively disappears. If your dining area is a walkway as much as a room, that combination is the strongest argument in the whole range. Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Black The Living Room, and the One Gap Coffee tables, TV units and consoles all come in black from both ranges. The Richmond Pine 2 Drawer TV Unit - Black is 160 x 45 x 55cm and the Richmond Pine Coffee Table - Black is 120 x 60 x 45cm, both with the open frame detail that runs through the range. The gap is the side table. The only one offered in black is the Liverpool Pine End Table - Black at 55 x 55 x 58cm. If everything else in the room is Richmond, this is the one piece that has to come from the other range, and at 55cm square in the same dark finish nobody will ever notice. A black TV unit is also the easiest black purchase to justify. A television is a black rectangle whether you like it or not, and a dark cabinet underneath absorbs it into one shape instead of framing it in pale timber. That is the argument for black even in a room where nothing else is dark. Richmond Pine 2 Drawer TV Unit - Black Where the Two Ranges Line Up, and Where They Do Not If you are buying black from both ranges, and most people who do a whole level end up doing exactly that, there are two numbers to check. The good news is at low level: both coffee tables are 45cm high, and the TV units are within a centimetre of each other in both height and depth. Put them in the same room and nothing looks off. The tall pieces are where the two ranges disagree. The Liverpool sideboard is 76cm high and the Richmond is 65cm, an 11cm gap that is very visible if the two share a wall. The consoles are 76cm and 82.5cm, 6.5cm apart. Neither is wrong, but they were not designed to stand next to each other. The workable rule is one range per sight line. Richmond for the dining end, Liverpool for the living end, or the reverse, and let the doorway or the change of room do the work. Mixing them within a single wall is the only way to make black furniture look accidental, which given how deliberate the finish is would be a shame. Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Black What Never Comes in Black Six of the eight ranges have no black version of anything. There is no black acacia, because the two acacia ranges exist to show the timber and a dark finish would defeat the point. There is no black French Provincial, no black Hamptons bedroom, and no black version of the bed frames that carry drawers in the footboard. That last one is the exclusion worth planning around. If you want under bed storage and you want black, those two requirements do not meet in this catalogue, and the answer is a black bed plus a black chest rather than a black bed with drawers in it. What you get in return for the narrow range is consistency. Every black piece here came from one of two ranges built to the same depth grid, so anything you buy in black will physically agree with anything else you buy in black. The full black range is small enough to see in one screen, which is the fastest way to check whether the piece you want is in it. Frequently Asked Questions Which Cedora ranges come in black? Two of the eight. Liverpool accounts for 20 of the 33 black pieces and Richmond for 13. Byron, Oxford, London, Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle have no black version of anything, so black and acacia never appear on the same piece. Can you furnish a whole bedroom in black? Yes, and it comes entirely from Liverpool: three bed sizes, a bedside table, a six drawer chest, a five drawer tallboy and a mirror. That is a complete bedroom, and it is the only range that offers one in a dark finish. Do the two black ranges match each other? At low level, yes. Both coffee tables are 45cm high and the TV units are within a centimetre of each other in height and depth. Higher up they diverge: the sideboards are 11cm apart and the consoles 6.5cm, which is visible when they share a wall. Is there a black side table? One, from Liverpool, at 55 x 55 x 58cm. If the rest of your living room is black Richmond, the side table is the piece that has to come from the other range, and at that size and height the difference does not read. Does black furniture work in a small room? It works best as a single anchor rather than a full scheme. One black piece against a light wall gives a small room a focal point. A whole small room in black loses the sense of where the walls are, which is the opposite of what a small room needs. Related Posts Same Table, Two Finishes: What Black Actually Does to an Australian Room Thirteen Designs, Two Finishes, One Range for the Whole Open Plan Level Three Ranges Share the Scandinavian Label, and Only One Does Dining Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Step into the Cedora® Virtual Reality Showroom — where innovation meets elegance. Explore our curated collections in immersive 3D spaces, walk through lifelike interiors, and experience every design from every angle as if you were truly there.
