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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 moreIf you have been comparing these two, the frustrating part is that nobody will tell you plainly what separates them. Both are solid acacia. Both put that timber on top and paint the frame white. Both cover a dining room and a living room and stop before the bedroom. Both come from the same maker, at nearly the same price per piece. The store files one as coastal and the other as farmhouse, and that is a genuine positioning difference, not a material one. What actually decides it for most households is a simpler question: how big is your room. Key Takeaways Same material in both: solid acacia top, white painted frame, MDF back panel on the sideboard and TV unit. Byron runs smaller, including the only acacia table under 190cm. Oxford runs larger: 180cm sideboard and TV unit against Byron's 160cm. Oxford carries timber onto the sideboard door fronts. Byron keeps it to the tops. The coffee tables are dimensionally identical and the chairs are within a centimetre. Same Timber, Same Build, Different Shelf Start with what is not in dispute. Both ranges list solid acacia, with the sideboard and TV unit in each carrying an MDF back panel that sits against the wall. Both put the acacia where you see and use it, and paint everything structural white. If you were shown an unlabelled tabletop from each you would not reliably tell them apart. Where they diverge is how the store groups them. The Coastal Furniture collection is exactly the twelve Byron pieces. The Farmhouse Furniture collection is exactly the eleven Oxford ones. Two labels, no overlap. Read those labels as descriptions of proportion, not of material. Byron is lighter and more compact, which is what coastal styling usually means in practice. Oxford is broader and more substantial, which is the farmhouse end of the same idea. Neither is more or less of a timber purchase than the other. Byron Goes Smaller The Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm is the piece Oxford has no answer to. At W1600 x D800 x H760 (mm) it seats four, and it is 100mm shallower than every other acacia table in the catalogue. In an apartment or a galley kitchen where the walkway past the table is the constraint, that shallower depth is worth more than the length. The pattern holds through the range. The Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard is 1600mm wide, the Byron Acacia 2 Door TV Unit the same, and the Byron Acacia 3 Drawer Console Table is 1200mm long. These are pieces drawn for rooms with normal walls, not long ones. Byron also gives you more drawers where it counts. Three drawers and three cupboards in the sideboard against Oxford's one drawer and four cupboards. If your dining storage is cutlery, placemats and candles rather than platters and serving bowls, that split matters more than the extra 200mm of width. Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm [products-of-collection collection="coastal-furniture" heading="Byron: the Coastal Grouping" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-byox-1"] Oxford Goes Bigger Oxford starts where Byron's mid-size sits. The dining tables are 190cm and 240cm only, and the case pieces step up: the Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard is W180 x D45 x H85cm and the Oxford Acacia TV Unit the same 180cm width. The console is the piece that best shows the difference in thinking. The Oxford Acacia Console Table is W150 x D36 x H76cm: half a metre longer than Byron's and two centimetres shallower. That is a hallway piece for a proper hallway, one where you want length along the wall and as little intrusion into the walking space as possible. Four cupboard doors rather than three also changes what the sideboard is for. Oxford's is closed storage with a single drawer across the middle, which suits platters, serving bowls and the things that come out when you entertain. It is the range for a house that hosts, not one that mostly eats. Byron Oxford Dining tables 160cm, 190cm, 240cm 190cm, 240cm Sideboard 160cm wide, 3 door 3 drawer, 86cm high 180cm wide, 4 door 1 drawer, 85cm high TV unit 160cm wide, 55cm high 180cm wide, 60cm high Console W120 x D38 x H82.5cm W150 x D36 x H76cm Small table End table, 55 x 55 x 55cm Side table, 55 x 55 x 58cm Coffee table 130 x 70 x 45cm 130 x 70 x 45cm Chair W47.6 x D54.1 x H88.5cm W46.8 x D55 x H88.7cm Pieces 12 11 Where the Timber Stops Is the Visual Difference This is the one you can actually see across a room, and it is not in any specification. On the Byron sideboard the acacia is the top and nothing else. The body is white, the doors are white, and the timber reads as a warm line along the upper edge of an otherwise painted piece. On the Oxford sideboard the acacia carries down onto the door fronts. The timber occupies most of the visible area and the white becomes a frame around it. Standing in front of both, Byron is painted furniture with a timber top and Oxford is timber furniture in a painted case. That is the practical version of the coastal and farmhouse labels. A white-dominant piece keeps a small or bright room feeling light. A timber-dominant piece gives a larger room something with weight in it. Neither is a better design, and if you are mixing ranges it is worth knowing which way each one leans before you put them on the same wall. Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard [products-of-collection collection="farmhouse-furniture" heading="Oxford: the Farmhouse Grouping" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-byox-2"] The Pieces That Are Genuinely the Same Three items make the mixing question easy. The coffee tables are identical at 130 x 70 x 45cm in both ranges. The small tables are within three centimetres, at 55 x 55 x 55cm for the Byron end table and 55 x 55 x 58cm for the Oxford side table. And the chairs sit within a centimetre of each other on every dimension. The Byron Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2 is W47.6 x D54.1 x H88.5cm and the Oxford Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2 is W46.8 x D55 x H88.7cm. Both upholster the seat on a white timber frame. Nobody sitting at your table will ever identify which range a chair came from. That matters if you are furnishing in stages or buying secondhand later. Cross-range mixing usually fails on colour, and here the whites and the timber tones are the same because the construction is the same. A Byron table with Oxford storage is a legitimate plan, not a compromise. Which One to Buy Take Byron if the room is compact, if you want a four-seat table, or if your dining storage is small items that want drawers. Twelve pieces, the lightest look of the two, and the only acacia table that fits a genuinely small space. Take Oxford if you have a long wall to fill, if you host and need cupboard space for serving pieces, or if you want more visible timber in the room. The 180cm case pieces and the 150cm console need the space, and in the right room they carry it where a 160cm piece would look under-scaled. And if your room sits between the two, remember the pieces are compatible. Buy the table from whichever range fits the floor and the storage from whichever fits the wall. That is a better answer than forcing one range to do a job the other was drawn for. Frequently Asked Questions What is the difference between Byron and Oxford? Size, mostly. Byron runs a 160cm dining table and 160cm case pieces. Oxford starts at 190cm and its sideboard and TV unit are 180cm. Both are a solid acacia top on a white painted frame. Which one suits a small dining room? Byron. Its 160cm table at W1600 x D800 x H760 (mm) seats four and is the only acacia table under 190cm in the range. Oxford has no equivalent. Do they use the same timber? Yes. Both are recorded as solid acacia, with an MDF back panel on the sideboard and TV unit in each range. The visible timber and the white frame are the same idea in both. Why is one called coastal and the other farmhouse? They are grouped that way in store: the Coastal Furniture collection is the twelve Byron pieces and the Farmhouse Furniture collection is the eleven Oxford ones. The construction is the same, so treat the labels as shorthand for proportions rather than materials. Can I mix Byron and Oxford in one room? Yes, more easily than most cross-range mixes, because the timber and the frame colour match. The coffee tables are identical at 130 x 70 x 45cm and the chairs are within a centimetre of each other, so a Byron table with Oxford storage reads as one room. Related Posts Byron Collection Room by Room: Acacia Tops on a White Frame Thirty-One Acacia Pieces, and the Timber Only Shows on Twenty-Three What Is Acacia Wood Furniture? Pros, Cons, and Durability Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Coastal furniture goes wrong when it starts announcing itself. Rope handles, painted anchors, a shell in a jar on every surface, and suddenly a living room reads like a rental at Byron Bay rather than a home someone lives in year round. The Byron range takes the opposite route. Solid acacia tops on white painted frames, no motifs, no theme. This is how the twelve pieces work across a dining room and a living room, what the timber actually is, and which table size fits which house. Key Takeaways Every Byron top is solid acacia, every frame is painted white. Three table sizes: 160cm seats four, 190cm seats six, 240cm seats eight. The sideboard stands 860mm high, taller than the dining table, so it doubles as a serving bench. The console, coffee table and end table all carry a lower shelf. Byron and the Coastal Furniture collection are the same twelve pieces. A Coastal Look That Does Not Need Shells on the Shelf What makes Byron read as coastal is the contrast, not the decoration. A white frame drops away against a pale wall, so what your eye actually lands on is the acacia top: warm, open grained, a shade or two darker than the frame carrying it. That is the same trick a weatherboard verandah plays, where the timber does the talking and the paintwork stays quiet. It matters in an Australian house because our light is unforgiving. Midday sun through a north-facing window flattens dark furniture into a silhouette and turns high-gloss surfaces into a glare. A matte white frame reflects that light back gently, and the timber warms it. A room with the Byron range in it looks the same at eight in the morning as it does at four in the afternoon. A dark timber setting in a west-facing room does not. The practical upside is that you never have to commit to a theme. Byron sits under linen, under rattan, under a jute rug, and equally under black-framed windows and a concrete floor. Nothing about it insists on a beach house, which is exactly why it survives the years when everyone gets tired of coastal styling. Three Table Sizes, and the One Most Homes Get Wrong The Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm measures W1600 x D800 x H760 (mm) and seats four. It is the size people skip past on the way to something bigger, and it is the right answer more often than they think. At 800mm deep rather than 900mm, it gives back a hundred millimetres of walkway, which in an apartment or a galley kitchen is the difference between squeezing past a seated guest and walking past them. The Byron Acacia Dining Table 190cm at W1900 x D900 x H760 (mm) seats six and is the volume seller for a reason: four every night, six when the grandparents come. The Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm at W2400 x D1000 x H760 (mm) seats eight and is a genuine entertaining table, the one you buy because Christmas happens at your place now. Measure the floor before you fall for the table. The usual mistake is buying for the four times a year you host rather than the three hundred and sixty one days you walk around it. If the bigger table means turning sideways to get to the kitchen every morning, the smaller one will make you happier. Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm with 4 Chairs Chairs, and the Settings Sold Ready to Go Chairs come in pairs as the Byron Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2, W476 x D541 x H885 (mm), with a white frame, a slatted back and an upholstered seat. The upholstery is the part that earns its keep. A timber seat is fine for twenty minutes and punishing for two hours, and Australian dinners in summer have a way of stretching from the table to the deck and back again. At 476mm wide the chairs are on the narrow side, which is deliberate. It is what lets three sit comfortably along the long edge of the 240cm table instead of two and a squeeze. It also means they tuck close, so the walkway behind them stays usable when nobody is sitting down. If you would rather not piece it together, three settings arrive matched: the Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm with 4 Chairs, the Byron Acacia Dining Table 190cm with 6 Chairs, and the Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm with 8 Chairs. Buying the setting means one delivery and one shade of white, which sounds trivial until you have two whites in the same room that do not agree. Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm with 8 Chairs Storage That Keeps the Room Bright The Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard is the piece worth planning around. At W1600 x D450 x H860 (mm) it stands a full hundred millimetres above the dining table, which puts the top at a comfortable standing height. Three drawers take cutlery and linen, three cupboards take the platters that surface twice a year, and the top becomes the place food waits while everyone finds a seat. In a house that entertains, that height does more work than the storage does. Next door, the Byron Acacia 2 Door TV Unit runs the same 1600mm width and 450mm depth at a lower H550 (mm), with two doors and open shelving so the things you reach for daily stay out and the cable mess stays behind a door. Matching the width across two rooms is what stops an open-plan space reading as two unrelated purchases pushed against the same wall. The smaller pieces all carry a lower shelf, which is the quiet advantage of this range. The Byron Acacia 3 Drawer Console Table, W1200 x D380x H825 (mm), holds keys and post above and a basket below. The Byron Acacia Coffee Table at W1300 x D700 x H450 (mm) is generous enough for a board game, and the Byron Acacia End Table, W550 x D550 x H550 (mm), parks beside a sofa or a bed without asking for floor space. Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard [products-of-collection collection="byron" heading="Shop the Byron Collection" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-byron-1"] Living With a White Frame in an Australian Home Two honest notes before you buy. A painted frame marks sooner than a stained one, and it happens in predictable places: the feet where the vacuum head clips them, the chair rails where shoes rest, the drawer edges near the handles. The upside is that white wipes clean with a damp cloth in seconds, while a raw timber leg holds a scuff for good. Most households find that trade fair. The acacia top is the durable half of the equation. It is a dense timber with a busy grain, and busy grain is forgiving: crumbs of daily wear disappear into the pattern instead of sitting on top of it like they do on a flat, pale surface. Use a placemat under anything straight off the stove, wipe spills rather than letting them sit, and keep the table out of all-day direct sun through an uncovered window, which is the one thing that fades timber faster than use does. Worth knowing: the sideboard and the TV unit carry an MDF back panel, which is standard in cabinet furniture and sits against the wall where nothing touches it. Every surface you actually use, every top and every shelf you set something down on, is solid acacia. If you want the longer version on how the timber behaves, our guide to acacia covers the trade-offs in full. Byron Acacia Coffee Table One Range, Two Rooms, No Theme Byron works because it is small enough to be consistent and broad enough to finish two rooms. Twelve pieces, one timber, one paint colour, and a shape language that does not change between the dining table and the end table beside the sofa. You can start with the table and the chairs, add the sideboard when the cutlery drawer in the kitchen gives up, and put the TV unit in next year without anything looking bolted on. That is the honest case for buying a range rather than assembling a room from six shops. Not that it saves money, because it usually does not, but that it removes the low-grade decision fatigue of trying to match a white you bought eighteen months ago. The whole Coastal Furniture collection is these same twelve pieces, so nothing is hiding around a corner waiting to clash. What it will not do is furnish a bedroom, and it is better to say that now than have you hunting for a matching bed frame. Byron stops at the dining and living rooms. If those are the spaces guests actually see, and the rooms where an Australian summer gets spent with the doors open and people wandering between the table and the deck, then twelve pieces is enough to finish the job properly. Byron Acacia 2 Door TV Unit Frequently Asked Questions Is Byron furniture solid timber? The tops are solid acacia. The frames are painted white, and the sideboard and TV unit also carry an MDF back panel. Everything you put a plate, a cup or a laptop on is solid timber. What size Byron dining table do I need? The 160cm table seats four, the 190cm seats six and the 240cm seats eight. All three stand 760mm high. The 160cm is also 800mm deep rather than 900mm, so it suits an apartment or a galley kitchen where the walkway matters more than the extra centimetres. Does the white frame mark easily? A painted frame shows scuffs sooner than a stained one, most often around the feet and the chair rails where shoes and vacuum heads land. It also wipes clean in seconds, which a raw timber leg does not. The acacia top is the part that takes daily wear, and it hides it well. Can I buy a Byron table and chairs together? Yes. Three settings are matched and priced together: the 160cm table with four chairs, the 190cm with six, and the 240cm with eight. Chairs on their own are sold in pairs. Is Byron the same as Cedora's other coastal furniture? Byron is the coastal range. Every piece in the Coastal Furniture collection is a Byron piece, so the two are the same twelve items viewed two ways. Related Posts What Is Acacia Wood Furniture? Pros, Cons, and Durability Modern Coastal Design: Create a Calm, Refined Home Aesthetic Richmond Collection Room by Room: Dining Tables and Bench Seating Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Most furniture ranges are put together bedroom first, then stretched outward until something fits the dining room. Richmond runs the other way. Of the twenty seven pieces in the range, twelve are dining tables or complete settings and four are benches, the only dining benches Cedora makes. This is a look at how the range works room by room, what the timber actually is, and which table size suits which household. Key Takeaways Two table sizes: 190cm seats six, 240cm seats eight. The legs are solid oak, the structure behind them is pine. Richmond is the only Cedora range with dining benches, in 158cm and 208cm. Benches sit 300mm below the tabletop, so they tuck fully underneath. Every piece comes in Natural or Black except the end table, which is Natural only. Built Around the Table, Not Around a Look The construction stays the same the whole way through the range. The legs are solid oak, the structure behind them is pine, and every piece stands on a closed timber loop at each end instead of four separate posts. That one detail is what makes the range readable from across a room. The same shape repeats at table height, at bench height and again at coffee table height, so two pieces bought months apart still look like they arrived together. Know what that focus means before you start. Richmond will not furnish a bedroom. What it does cover is the dining room and the living areas beside it, which is the right trade if that part of the house is the part working hardest. The Richmond range extends outward from the table rather than trying to reach every room. It also means the range is easy to buy in stages. A household that starts with the table and two pairs of chairs can add the bench the following winter and the sideboard the year after, and nothing will look like an afterthought, because the leg frame and the timber do not change between pieces. That matters more than it sounds when a dining room is furnished on the budget of a family rather than the budget of a showroom. Two Table Sizes, Two Kinds of Household There are two tables and the gap between them is deliberate. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm measures W1,900 x D900 x H760 (mm) and seats six, which suits a family of four with room for grandparents on a Sunday. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm measures W2,400 x D1,000 x H760 (mm) and seats eight, the size you buy when the house has become the one everybody drives to. The extra 100mm of depth on the larger table matters more than the length does. At 1,000mm across you can run serving dishes down the centre and still leave every place setting its own space. Before you choose, measure the floor rather than the table, and leave enough clearance behind the chairs for someone to walk past while another person is seated. Four people who host twice a year should take the smaller table and keep the floor space. Anyone regularly setting eight places will tire of dragging in extra chairs, and the larger table pays for itself in the first summer of visitors. Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm - Natural The Bench, and Why It Disappears The bench is the piece no other Cedora range has. It comes in two lengths matched to the two tables: the Richmond Pine Dining Bench 158cm at W1,580 x D400 x H460 (mm) seats up to three, and the Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm at W2,080 x D400 x H460 (mm) seats up to four. Both sit 300mm below the tabletop, which means they slide back under the table completely when lunch is finished. That is what changes a small dining room. On an ordinary Saturday the bench is pushed in and the floor reads as open again, with no chair backs breaking the sightline to the kitchen. Then somebody arrives without warning at midday, three children shuffle along and a fourth person fits on the end, which four separate chairs cannot do. The trade off is honest: a bench has no back, so long sittings get tiring, and most households run a bench down one side and chairs on the other. It also has a second life outside the dining room. At 400mm deep it sits along a hallway wall or under a window without narrowing the path past it, which makes it somewhere to put shoes on, or a surface for folded washing waiting to be carried through. Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Natural [products-of-collection collection="richmond" heading="Shop the Richmond Collection" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-richmond-1"] Chairs, or the Whole Setting in One Order Chairs are sold in pairs as the Richmond Pine Dining Chair Set of 2, measuring W510 x D620 x H880 (mm) each, with an upholstered seat and back on timber legs. Buying in twos is more useful than it sounds, because a dining room is rarely finished in one purchase. Four chairs cover most homes, and another pair goes in later when the household grows. If you would rather not assemble the room piece by piece, four settings are already matched and priced together. The 190cm table comes with six chairs, or with four chairs and the 158cm bench. The 240cm table comes with eight chairs, or with four chairs and the 208cm bench. Ordering the setting removes the two things that go wrong when pieces are bought separately: finishes that do not quite agree, and half the room arriving three weeks after the rest. One practical note. At 880mm to the top of the back, the chairs stand well above the 760mm table, so from the doorway you see chair backs before you see the table, and six of them in a small room is a lot of upright timber. That is why the bench settings suit narrow spaces, since half the seating drops out of the sightline. Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm with 4 chairs & Bench 158cm - Natural [products-of-collection collection="dining-sets" heading="Dining Tables and Chairs Sold Together" limit="4" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-richmond-2"] What Sits Around the Table The storage pieces are built to the same width so the room lines up. The Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard is W1,600 x D450 x H650 (mm) and the Richmond Pine 2 Drawer TV Unit shares that 1,600mm width and 450mm depth at a lower H550 (mm). Where the dining and living areas share a wall, that repetition is what stops the room looking like two separate purchases pushed together. The sideboard is the piece that changes how the dining room runs. Three drawers take the cutlery, placemats and candles that otherwise live in the kitchen, and the cupboards take the serving dishes that come out four times a year. Setting the table stops being a trip back and forth, and the top becomes where the food waits while everyone sits down. The smaller pieces cover the gaps. The Richmond Pine 2 Drawer Console Table is W1,200 x D380x H825 (mm), shallow enough for a hallway people still walk down and tall enough to sit behind a sofa rather than beside it. The Richmond Pine Coffee Table at W1,200 x D600 x H450 (mm) carries the same closed leg frame as the dining table, and the Richmond Pine End Table, W550 x D500 x H550 (mm), is the one piece made in Natural only. Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural What the Timber Is, and Which Finish to Take It is worth being exact about the material, because oak is a word that gets used loosely. In Richmond the oak is in the legs, solid, where the load sits. The structure behind it is pine. This is not a solid oak slab and it is not priced like one, and knowing that before you buy beats discovering it after delivery. What the combination gives you is a table that takes daily use on the parts that get knocked, at a price a family can justify. The finish does more to a room than the size does. Natural keeps a small or south-facing space feeling open, since the timber carries light rather than absorbing it. Black draws the outline of the piece and gives a bright room something to settle on, which works well against pale floorboards. Because the shapes are identical across both, a black 240cm table with a natural sideboard reads as a decision, not an accident. The two finishes also age differently. Pine is softer than oak, so surfaces pick up the marks of a household that uses them, and black shows dust more readily than natural while hiding small dents better. If you want a table that still looks untouched in five years, that is a different purchase. Placemats under hot dishes and a dry cloth for spills covers the rest. Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Black Frequently Asked Questions How many people does a Richmond dining table seat? The 190cm table seats six and the 240cm table seats eight. Each Richmond chair is 510mm wide, so the 190cm table takes two chairs down each long side with one at either end, and the 240cm table takes three a side on the same principle. Does the Richmond bench fit under the table? Yes. Both benches are 460mm high against a 760mm tabletop, so there is 300mm of clearance and the bench slides fully underneath when it is not in use. That is what gives a small dining room its floor space back between meals. Is Richmond furniture solid oak? No, and it is worth being clear about it. The legs are solid oak, where the load sits, and the structure behind them is pine. Richmond is not a solid oak slab and it is not priced like one. What sizes do the Richmond dining benches come in? Two. The 158cm bench measures W1,580 x D400 x H460 (mm) and seats up to three, and the 208cm bench measures W2,080 x D400 x H460 (mm) and seats up to four. Each is matched to one of the two table lengths. Can I buy the Richmond table and chairs together? Yes. Four settings are already matched and priced together: the 190cm table with six chairs, the 190cm table with four chairs and the 158cm bench, the 240cm table with eight chairs, and the 240cm table with four chairs and the 208cm bench. Related Posts Dining Bench vs Chairs: How to Choose the Best Seating How Many Chairs for a Dining Table? Australian Size Guide Liverpool Collection Room by Room: Pine and Oak Veneer Furniture Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
These are the two ranges Cedora customers actually get stuck between. Both build a dining room properly, both come in natural and black, both are pine underneath, and both put a 190cm and a 240cm table on the floor. Sitting side by side in a product grid they look like a preference rather than a decision. The differences are real, but almost none of them are in the photographs. They are in the depth of the tabletop, the height of the chair backs, whether a bench exists at all, and how far each range reaches once you leave the dining room. Key Takeaways Richmond is the only one with benches, in 158cm and 208cm. The Liverpool 240cm table is 110cm deep against Richmond's 100cm. Richmond chairs stand 88cm tall, Liverpool's 83cm. Liverpool offers two sideboard sizes and two TV unit sizes. Richmond offers one of each. Liverpool has forty pieces including a bedroom. Richmond has twenty seven and stops at the living room. The Tables Look the Same Until You Measure the Depth Both ranges run a 190cm and a 240cm table at 76cm high, and at 190cm they are effectively the same footprint: 90cm deep in both cases, seating six. If your room only takes the smaller table, this comparison barely matters and you should choose on looks. At 240cm they part company. The Liverpool Pine Dining Table 240cm is 110cm deep. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural is 100cm. Ten centimetres does not sound like a decision until you are the person setting a table for eight with a roast, two sides and a jug in the middle of it. The cost is the same ten centimetres of floor on both sides. In a dining room that is already tight across its short dimension, the Richmond table gives you back walking room the Liverpool does not. Measure across the narrow direction of the room before you decide which way that trade falls. Liverpool Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural Only One of Them Does Benches Richmond has four bench SKUs, in 158cm and 208cm, and they are the only dining benches in the entire Cedora catalogue. Both sit 46cm high against a 76cm tabletop, which means 30cm of clearance and a bench that slides completely back under the table when the meal is over. That single fact resolves this comparison for a lot of households. A bench seats three or four across without four separate chair backs breaking the sightline, it takes an extra person who arrives unannounced, and it disappears between meals in a way chairs cannot. In a narrow dining room or an open-plan space where the table sits in the traffic path, it is worth more than any material difference. If bench seating is not part of your plan, this section costs Liverpool nothing. But it is worth being honest that no amount of comparing tabletops matters if the thing you actually wanted was a bench. Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Natural [products-of-collection collection="richmond" heading="Richmond Dining, With Bench Seating" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-lvr-1"] The Chairs Are Not Interchangeable Both sell chairs in pairs, both upholster the seat, and the dimensions diverge more than you would guess. The Liverpool Pine Dining Chair Set of 2 - Natural is W54 x D54 x H83cm. The Richmond Pine Dining Chair Set of 2 - Natural is W51 x D62 x H88cm. Five centimetres of back height changes what you see from the doorway. Richmond's taller backs read as more formal and give more support when a meal runs long. Liverpool's lower backs sit closer to the tabletop line, which keeps a small dining area feeling open, particularly when six chairs are in the room at once. Width matters for a different reason. At 51cm the Richmond chair fits three along the long side of a 240cm table with room to spare. At 54cm the Liverpool chair does the same but with less margin, so if you are seating eight regularly the Richmond arrangement is the more comfortable one. Liverpool Richmond Chair W54 x D54 x H83cm W51 x D62 x H88cm Table 240cm W240 x D110 x H76cm W240 x D100 x H76cm Bench None 158cm and 208cm, 46cm high Sideboard 130cm and 180cm, both 76cm high 160cm, 65cm high TV unit 140cm and 180cm 160cm Material Pine frame with oak veneer Solid oak legs, pine structure Pieces 40, including bedroom 27, dining and living only Storage: Liverpool Flexes, Richmond Commits This is where Liverpool's size starts to tell. It offers two sideboards, at 130cm and 180cm, and two TV units, at 140cm and 180cm, all in both finishes. Richmond offers one sideboard at 160cm and one TV unit at 160cm. If your wall is 150cm or 200cm rather than something in between, that flexibility is the practical difference between a piece that fits and a piece that nearly fits. Height differs too, and it is the detail most people miss. The Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural stands 76cm high, level with the dining table. The Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard is 65cm. A sideboard at table height works as a serving surface you can slide dishes across. A lower one reads more like a console and keeps the wall feeling open above it. Neither is better. They suit different habits. If you plate up at the sideboard when you entertain, take the taller one. If the sideboard is mostly storage with a lamp on it, the lower one keeps the room lighter. Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural One Owns the Dining Room, One Covers the House Richmond is a dining range that extends into the living room. Twenty seven pieces, twelve of them dining tables or settings, four benches, and then a sideboard, a TV unit, a console, a coffee table and an end table to carry the look next door. There is no bed, no bedside, no tallboy. Liverpool is a whole-home range at forty pieces. It does everything Richmond does in the dining and living rooms, then adds six bed frames, two bedside tables, two tallboys, two chests and two mirrors. If the plan is to furnish a house rather than a room, that breadth is not a nice extra, it is the entire argument. The trade for that breadth is the material. Liverpool is a pine frame with an oak veneer surface, which is what makes a consistent look across forty pieces affordable. Richmond puts solid oak in the legs, where a dining table takes its punishment, and pine in between. Which matters more depends on whether you are buying one hard-working table or a coherent house. How to Actually Choose Take Richmond if the dining table is the centre of the house, if you want bench seating, or if you are buying one table to survive fifteen years of family meals. Solid oak legs and a 100cm depth suit a room where the table is used hard and the floor around it is tight. Take Liverpool if you are furnishing more than one room, if your wall needs a 130cm or 180cm sideboard rather than a 160cm one, or if you want the deeper 240cm tabletop for entertaining. Forty matching pieces is a genuine advantage when the alternative is assembling a house from four different shops. And if you are still tied after all that, go and sit in the chairs. Five centimetres of back height and eight centimetres of seat depth is a bigger difference in practice than anything on this page, and it is the only part of the decision a specification cannot make for you. [products-of-collection collection="liverpool" heading="Liverpool, Dining to Bedroom" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-lvr-2"] Frequently Asked Questions Which is bigger, the Liverpool or Richmond dining table? Both come in 190cm and 240cm. The difference is depth: the Liverpool 240cm is 110cm deep against 100cm on the Richmond. Ten centimetres down the middle of a table is the room for serving dishes without crowding place settings. Does Liverpool have dining benches? No, and no other Cedora range does either. Bench seating exists in Richmond alone, at 158cm and 208cm. If it is part of your plan, that settles the question before you get to the tables. What is the difference in materials? Richmond uses solid oak legs on a pine structure. Liverpool uses a solid pine frame with an oak veneer surface. Richmond puts real hardwood where the knocks land, Liverpool puts an oak surface across everything you see. Which range covers more of the house? Liverpool, comfortably. Forty pieces including six bed frames, bedside tables, tallboys, chests and mirrors. Richmond's twenty seven pieces stop at the dining and living rooms. Do both come in black? Yes. Both ranges offer natural and black across the range, so the choice between them is not a colour decision. The end table is the one exception, sold in natural only in Richmond. Related Posts Richmond Collection Room by Room: Dining Tables and Bench Seating Dining Bench vs Chairs: How to Choose the Best Seating Oak Is in 75 Cedora Pieces, and None of Them Is Solid Oak Throughout Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
The Liverpool Collection was created for that sense of cohesion. Not to fill a space, but to refine it. To bring balance between form and feeling, between structure and comfort, between what is seen and what is lived.
Acacia is the timber people ask about most and understand least. It turns up in the same sentence as oak and teak, it costs a fraction of either, and the usual explanation stops at "durable hardwood" without ever answering the question a buyer actually has, which is what it will look like in their house in five years. Cedora uses it in thirty-one pieces across three ranges. On twenty-three of them the acacia is what you see and touch. On the other eight it is inside the furniture, painted over, and you would never know it was there. Those are two genuinely different purchases, and it is worth knowing which one you are making. Key Takeaways Thirty-one acacia pieces: Byron twelve, Oxford eleven, Newcastle eight. Byron and Oxford show the timber. Newcastle paints over it. Every acacia top is solid. Sideboards and TV units carry an MDF back panel. Byron paints everything but the tops. Oxford carries timber onto door fronts too. Cedora's own Acacia Furniture collection excludes Newcastle, for exactly that reason. Why a Furniture Maker Reaches for Acacia Acacia is dense, it is farmed rather than slow-grown, and it arrives with a grain that is anything but uniform. Boards vary from pale honey to a warmer caramel, often across the same tabletop, and the figure runs in short interlocked passages rather than the long straight lines of oak. It is the opposite of a calm timber. That variability is the whole point commercially. A busy grain forgives, which matters more in a family home than any hardness rating printed on a spec sheet. A cup ring, a fork scrape, the mark a hot plate leaves through a thin tea towel: on a flat pale surface each of those events is an incident, and on acacia most of them simply disappear into the pattern within a week or two. The trade is that you cannot control the look. Two Oxford tables from the same production run will not match board for board, and if you are the sort of person who wants furniture to arrive exactly as photographed, that will bother you. If you would rather your dining table look lived in on purpose than worn out by accident, it is the right timber. Byron: Acacia on Top, White Everywhere Else The twelve Byron pieces follow one rule. The top is solid acacia, everything holding it up is painted white. The Byron Acacia Dining Table 190cm at W1900 x D900 x H760 (mm) is the clearest example: a warm timber plane floating on a frame that visually disappears against a pale wall. It is a deliberate piece of restraint. In a room with a lot of natural light, which describes most Australian living areas facing a garden or a deck, a full timber setting can read heavy by mid-afternoon. Splitting the piece into a timber surface and a white structure keeps the warmth at eye level, where you sit and eat, and takes the weight out of everything below the table line. The same logic runs through the Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard at W1600 x D450 x H860 (mm) and the Byron Acacia Coffee Table. White carcass, timber top, and an MDF back panel on the sideboard and TV unit that sits against the wall where nothing touches it. Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard Oxford: the Timber Goes Further Oxford runs the same combination but does not stop at the top. On the Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard, W180 x D45 x H85cm, the acacia carries down onto the door fronts, so the timber occupies most of the piece and the white becomes a frame around it. Stand the two sideboards side by side and Byron reads as painted furniture with a timber top, Oxford as timber furniture in a painted case. Oxford also runs larger. The sideboard and the Oxford Acacia TV Unit are both 180cm wide against Byron's 160cm, and the Oxford Acacia Console Table stretches to W150 x D36 x H76cm, which is unusually long and unusually shallow. Thirty-six centimetres is narrow enough for a hallway people still have to walk down. The dining tables are the 190cm at W190 x D90 x H76cm and the 240cm at W240 x D100 x H76cm, seating six and eight. Chairs come in pairs as the Oxford Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2, W46.8 x D55 x H88.7cm, with an upholstered seat on a white timber frame. Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard [products-of-collection collection="acacia-furniture" heading="Acacia Furniture at Cedora" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-acacia-1"] Newcastle: the Acacia You Never See The eight Newcastle pieces list acacia too, and this is where a buyer can be caught out. The bed frames are recorded as a solid acacia headboard with a pine and acacia structure, and the case pieces as a pine and acacia structure. Every one of them is painted white, and on the beds the headboard panel is upholstered in fabric on top of that. There is no visible timber anywhere in the range. That is not a problem, but it does change what you are buying. In Byron and Oxford you are paying for acacia as a finish, and the timber is doing the aesthetic work. In Newcastle you are paying for it as a structure, and the aesthetic work is being done by the shape: curved fronts, moulded edges, shaped legs. Judge Newcastle on its silhouette, because that is what you will actually see. Cedora's own Newcastle chest sits in the French Provincial and bedroom collections rather than the Acacia Furniture one, which is the correct call. If you searched the store for acacia and expected Newcastle to appear, that is why it did not. Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest Living With Acacia in an Australian House Three things actually matter, and none of them are complicated. Heat is the first: acacia takes daily use well and takes a hot pan badly, so a mat under anything straight off the stove is the whole of the maintenance routine for most households. Standing water is the second, and the answer is to wipe rather than to leave it, particularly around the join lines where boards meet. Sun is the third and the one people underestimate here. A table parked in unfiltered afternoon light through a west-facing window will lighten unevenly over a couple of summers, and the part shaded by a fruit bowl will stay darker than the rest. Sheer curtains solve it, moving the bowl occasionally solves it, and doing neither means living with a pale rectangle you will notice forever. What you do not need is oil, polish, or a maintenance schedule. These pieces arrive sealed and the finish is not something you top up. A damp cloth and the occasional dry one covers it, and the grain handles the rest by being too busy to hold a grudge. Oxford Acacia Console Table Which Range Suits Which Room If the acacia is the reason you are here, that narrows it to twenty-three pieces and a fairly clean split. Byron suits a room where you want warmth at table height and lightness everywhere else, which is most apartments and most open-plan living areas where the furniture has to share a floor with a sofa. It also runs to a 160cm dining table, the smallest in the group, which matters in a compact space. Oxford suits a room with a wall to fill. The 180cm case pieces and the door-front timber give it more presence, and in a larger dining room or a hallway with a proper run of wall it holds its ground where a lighter piece would look lost. Both ranges cover dining and living. Neither covers a bedroom. Newcastle is the answer only if what you want is the Provincial shape, and the acacia is incidental. Buy it for the curves, the upholstered headboard and the painted finish, and treat the timber inside as what it is: the structure doing its job quietly, where nobody sees it. All three ranges list acacia on the spec sheet, but only the Acacia Furniture pieces are really about the wood. Frequently Asked Questions How many acacia pieces does Cedora make? Thirty-one across three ranges: twelve in Byron, eleven in Oxford and eight in Newcastle. On the twenty-three Byron and Oxford pieces the acacia is the surface you see. On the eight Newcastle pieces it is structural and painted over. Is Cedora's acacia furniture solid timber? The tops are solid acacia. The frames on Byron and Oxford are painted, and the sideboards and TV units in both ranges carry an MDF back panel, which sits against the wall. Every surface you set something down on is solid timber. What is the difference between Byron and Oxford acacia? Mostly where the timber stops. Byron puts acacia on the tops and paints the rest. Oxford carries it further, including onto the sideboard door fronts. Oxford also runs to larger case pieces at 180cm wide against Byron's 160cm. Does acacia furniture mark easily? Less than most pale timbers, because the grain is busy and varied enough to absorb small marks rather than frame them. Heat and standing water are the real risks, so use a mat under anything straight off the stove and wipe spills rather than leaving them. Why is Newcastle not in the Acacia Furniture collection? Because you cannot see the timber. The Acacia Furniture collection groups the pieces where acacia is the visible finish, which is Byron and Oxford. Newcastle's acacia sits inside a painted frame and behind an upholstered headboard. Related Posts What Is Acacia Wood Furniture? Pros, Cons, and Durability Byron Collection Room by Room: Acacia Tops on a White Frame Oak vs Acacia Wood Furniture: Best Dining Table Choice Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
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