The French Provincial range is the only genuinely decorated furniture in this catalogue. Everything else runs to straight edges and flat fronts. These eight pieces have bowed drawer fronts, curved legs that scroll at the foot, shaped aprons and an arched headboard, and they look like they came from a different century than the rest of the store. Which raises a fair question if you are shopping on measurements: does all that shape cost you anything practical? It does, and the number is about eight centimetres. Here is where it goes. Key Takeaways Eight pieces, all bedroom, and no dining or living furniture in the range at all. The chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm and the tallboy 100 x 45 x 114cm, both standard. Chest drawers are 16cm deep inside, the shallowest in the catalogue by 8.6cm. The bedside table is 64.4cm tall, taller than any other bedside here. Every case piece is a painted frame with a timber top and dark bail handles. Eight Pieces, One Room, and That Is the Whole Range The list is short. Three bed sizes, one bedside table, one chest, one tallboy, one mirror, and the chest and mirror offered together as a set. That is the complete French Provincial offering, and unlike most ranges here it does not stretch into the dining room or the living room at any point. The Newcastle Acacia Queen Bed Frame sets the tone: a painted frame with an arched top, an upholstered headboard panel and shaped legs that curve out at the foot. There is a double and a king built the same way, all standing 123.5cm at the headboard. Everything else follows the bed. The Newcastle Acacia 2 Drawer Bedside Table, the Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest and the Newcastle Acacia 5 Drawer Tallboy all carry a timber top over a painted frame, bowed drawer fronts, dark bail handles and the same curved legs. It is the most internally consistent range in the catalogue. Newcastle Acacia 2 Drawer Bedside Table The Boxes Are Exactly Standard Here is what surprises people who compare on paper. For all the shaping, the chest is 140cm wide, 45cm deep and 85cm high, which is the identical footprint of every other six drawer chest in the catalogue. The tallboy is 100 x 45 x 114cm, matching two other ranges to the centimetre. The mirror is a 100cm square. That is genuinely useful information. It means a French Provincial chest drops into the exact space a plain modern chest occupies, so you can swap one for the other without re measuring the wall, and you can put this chest in a room where the rest of the furniture came from somewhere else and it will line up. It also means the usual planning numbers apply. Forty five centimetres out from the wall, 140cm along it for the chest, one metre for the tallboy. The curves live inside those dimensions rather than adding to them, because the shaped legs tuck under the carcass rather than splaying past it. Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest [products-of-collection collection="french-provincial-furniture" heading="Shop the French Provincial Range" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-provincial-1"] But the Drawers Are the Shallowest in the Catalogue This is where the decoration is paid for. The chest drawers measure 62.35 x 37.8 x 16cm inside. Sixteen centimetres is the shallowest drawer in any chest here, and the deepest range in the catalogue runs 24.6cm. Same outside dimensions, 8.6cm less depth inside every one of the six drawers. The tallboy tells the same story at 18.5cm across all five drawers, where comparable tallboys run 20.8cm to 22.5cm. The bedside drawers are 15.1cm. Nothing here is broken, it is simply that a bowed front, a thicker shaped carcass and a decorative apron under the bottom drawer all take their space from somewhere, and that somewhere is inside. In practice a 16cm drawer takes folded t-shirts, underwear, socks and anything flat, and it flattens a chunky jumper into a pancake. If your winter storage is knitwear rather than shirts, plan on the chest holding perhaps two thirds of what a flat fronted chest of the same size would. That is the honest trade for the way it looks. Newcastle Acacia 5 Drawer Tallboy The Bedside Table Is the Tallest One Here At 64.4cm the Newcastle bedside is the tallest in the catalogue. The others land between 55.9cm and 60cm, so this one stands roughly 5cm proud of the pack, and that is a number worth checking against your own bed before ordering. Most mattress tops in Australian bedrooms finish between 55cm and 65cm off the floor once the base and the mattress are stacked. Against a traditional base with a deep mattress, 64.4cm is close to perfect: the surface sits level with where your hand naturally lands. Against a low platform bed at 45cm, it will loom. The two drawers are 42.6 x 34.7 x 15.1cm, so the same shallow rule applies. That is fine for a bedside, where the contents are a book, a charger, hand cream and the blister pack of paracetamol nobody admits to. Bedside drawers are the one place in the house where shallow is the correct answer. The Mirror Finishes It, and It Sits Rather Than Hangs The Newcastle Acacia Mirror is 100 x 100cm and 5cm deep, framed in the same white with a shaped and scrolled crown across the top. It is built to pair with the chest, which is why the two are also sold together as the Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest with Mirror. Resting on an 85cm chest, the top of that mirror lands at 185cm, and the bottom of the glass at 85cm. It is a face and torso mirror rather than a full length one, which is what a bedroom mirror above a chest is actually used for while you are putting earrings in at seven in the morning. The shaped crown is the detail that makes the range read as period rather than merely painted. It is also the reason to leave clear wall above the chest: a mirror with a decorative top set 15cm below a picture rail looks cramped in a way a plain rectangle would not. Newcastle Acacia Mirror Who the Range Is Actually For Period homes, first. In a Federation or interwar bedroom with high ceilings, deep skirtings and a picture rail, this furniture matches the architecture instead of arguing with it, and the curved legs stop the room reading as a box full of rectangles. In a plain modern bedroom it still works, but the rule changes: buy one piece, not the set. A single shaped chest against a flat white wall reads as a deliberate choice. The full set in a new build bedroom with square skirting and a flush door starts to look like a stage set, because there is nothing in the room for the detail to answer to. The other thing it needs is air. Shaped legs and a scrolled apron only exist to be seen, so a piece jammed into an alcove with 3cm either side has given up most of what it is for. Give the French Provincial range a wall it can be looked at from across the room, and the shallower drawers stop mattering. Frequently Asked Questions What is in the French Provincial range? Eight pieces, all bedroom: three bed sizes, a two drawer bedside table, a six drawer chest, a five drawer tallboy, a mirror, and the chest and mirror sold together as a set. There is no dining or living furniture in it at all. What are the dimensions of the French Provincial chest and tallboy? The chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm and the tallboy is 100 x 45 x 114cm, which are exactly the dimensions every other chest and tallboy in the catalogue uses. Despite the shaped fronts and curved legs, these pieces occupy standard footprints. Why are the drawers shallower than other ranges? Because the bowed front and the shaped apron take their space from inside. The chest drawers are 16cm high internally against 24.6cm in the deepest range here, so the same 85cm tall cabinet holds noticeably less than a flat fronted one. How tall is the French Provincial bedside table? 64.4cm, which is the tallest bedside table in the catalogue. Everything else sits between 55.9cm and 60cm. Against a high mattress that extra height is useful, and against a low platform bed it will stand noticeably proud of the mattress top. Does French Provincial furniture suit a modern house? It can, but it needs space around it. The shaped legs and curved fronts read best with room to be seen, so a piece pushed into a tight alcove loses everything you paid for. In a plain modern bedroom, one piece works better than a full set. Related Posts The Newcastle Collection The Tallboy Holds Nearly as Much as a Chest 40cm Wider Why a 100cm Bedroom Mirror Stops at Your Ankles Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Read more
Two pieces of bedroom furniture, one 140cm wide and one 100cm. One with six drawers, one with five. The wider one with more drawers holds more: that is the assumption almost everybody makes, and in this catalogue it is wrong four times out of five. Cedora builds both to a fixed grid, which makes them unusually easy to compare. Every six drawer chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm. Every five drawer tallboy is 100cm wide and 45cm deep. Measure the drawers rather than the boxes and the gap between them almost disappears. Key Takeaways Every chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm; every tallboy is 100cm wide and 45cm deep. Tallboy heights run from 100cm to 120cm depending on the range, a 20cm spread. In four of five ranges the two pieces hold within eight percent of each other. The tallboy takes 0.45 square metres of floor against 0.63 for the chest. What the extra 40cm of wall really buys is a usable surface at 85cm, not capacity. Every Chest Is 140cm Wide and Every Tallboy Is 100cm Five ranges make both pieces, and the outside dimensions do not vary at all on the chests. The London Pine 6 Drawer Chest, the Manchester Pine 6 Drawer Chest, the Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest, the Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest and the Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Natural are all 140 x 45 x 85cm. The tallboys hold width and depth at 100cm and 45cm but move on height. The Liverpool Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy - Natural stops at 100cm, the Bristol Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy reaches 110cm, the Newcastle Acacia 5 Drawer Tallboy and Manchester Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy both land on 114cm, and the London Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy goes to 120cm. The number that never changes is 45cm of depth, and it is the one worth writing on your hand. In a bedroom, depth is what you lose from the walkway beside the bed, and 45cm out from the wall is the same loss whichever piece you buy. Everything else about this decision is a trade between wall and height. Five Drawers That Are Not Five Equal Drawers Every tallboy here uses the same layout: two narrow drawers side by side across the top, then three full width drawers below. It looks like a styling choice and it is not. A single wide drawer is where small items go to disappear, so the range splits the top row in two and gives you a compartment sized for the things you reach for daily. The numbers vary a little by range. The Bristol runs top drawers at 42.5 x 37 x 20.8cm and lower drawers at 87.5cm wide. The London goes narrower and taller at 39cm across the top and 22.5cm deep inside, with 80.5cm lower drawers. The Newcastle has the widest lower drawers in the range at 87.6cm, and the shallowest at 18.5cm. In use that split is what makes a tallboy work in a room where two people share one piece of furniture. The two small drawers become one each, and the three below hold the folded clothing that neither of you needs to see every morning. A chest cannot make that division because all six of its drawers are the same size. London Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy [products-of-collection collection="tallboy" heading="Shop Cedora Tallboys" limit="6" columns="3" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-drawers-1"] Six Drawers That Really Are Six Equal Drawers The chests take the opposite approach: two columns of three identical drawers, 59cm to 63cm wide depending on the range, all the same size within a given piece. Nothing on a chest is sized for small items, and that is the design decision that shapes what it is good at. Interior heights are where the ranges genuinely separate. The Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Black and its natural twin run 24.6cm deep inside, the deepest drawer in the catalogue. The Manchester sits at 20.6cm, the Bristol at 20.3cm, the London at 19.1cm, and the Newcastle at 16cm, which is a full 8.6cm shallower than the Liverpool. That range matters more than the drawer count. A 16cm drawer takes folded t-shirts and flattens anything thicker. A 24.6cm drawer takes a stack of jumpers without compressing the one on the bottom into a sheet. If you buy chests by looking at the outside, all five of these look identical, and inside they are not. Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Natural [products-of-collection collection="chest" heading="Shop Cedora Chests of Drawers" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-drawers-2"] The Capacity Gap Is Smaller Than the Width Gap Multiply the internal dimensions out and the comparison becomes concrete. In the London range the tallboy holds roughly 275 litres against the chest at 259. In the Newcastle range it is 243 against 226. Both times the five drawer tallboy, on 40cm less wall, wins. The other three go the other way by similar margins. Manchester is 260 litres for the tallboy against 270 for the chest, Bristol 267 against 282. Only Liverpool breaks the pattern properly, where those 24.6cm drawers give the chest about 344 litres against 282 for the tallboy, a genuine 22 percent gap. So the honest summary is this: outside the Liverpool range, the number of drawers tells you nothing about capacity. The chest is 40 percent wider and holds within eight percent of the same volume, because the tallboy simply stacks the same drawer area upward instead of spreading it sideways. London Pine 6 Drawer Chest What the Extra 40cm of Wall Actually Buys If it is not capacity, it is the top. A chest at 85cm puts a usable surface at hip height, which is the height a kitchen bench is built at for the same reason. That surface holds a lamp, a tray, a folded pile of washing waiting two days to be put away, and it is where the matching mirror goes. A tallboy top at 110cm or 120cm is a different object. It is above the eye line of anyone sitting on the bed and just below the eye line of anyone standing, which makes it good for a plant and useless as a place to get ready. Nothing you put up there gets seen properly, and nothing you put up there is easy to reach. There is a second cost to height, and it is a safety one. A loaded tallboy is top heavy, and a child who opens the lower drawers and climbs them can bring the whole piece down. Anchor anything over a metre to a wall stud or a rated plasterboard fixing, and do it on the day it arrives rather than the weekend after. Newcastle Acacia 5 Drawer Tallboy Which One the Room Picks for You Start with the wall rather than the wardrobe. One clear run of 140cm with nothing crossing it, no door swing and no robe track, and the chest is the better buy every time: same storage, better surface, lower profile in a small room. That run is rarer in Australian bedrooms than people expect once the bed, the robe and the window are placed. If what you actually have is a metre of wall in a corner, between a window and a door frame, the tallboy is not a compromise. It is the piece designed for that gap, and outside the Liverpool range it gives up almost nothing in return. Check the height against the window sill and the light switch before ordering, because the difference between the 100cm Liverpool and the 120cm London decides whether it passes under or blocks it. The rooms that need both are the ones with two people and one wardrobe, and there the split is easy: the chest with its mirror takes the long wall and does the morning routine, and the tallboy takes the corner and swallows everything seasonal. Between the tallboy range and the chests, the room decides, not the drawer count. Frequently Asked Questions Does a tallboy hold less than a chest of drawers? Barely. Measured drawer by drawer, four of the five Cedora ranges put the tallboy and the chest within eight percent of each other, and in the London and Newcastle ranges the five drawer tallboy actually holds more than the six drawer chest. What are the standard dimensions of a tallboy and a chest? Across this range every six drawer chest is 140cm wide, 45cm deep and 85cm high. Every five drawer tallboy is 100cm wide and 45cm deep, with heights from 100cm to 120cm depending on the range. Depth is the one number that never changes. Why does a tallboy have two small drawers at the top? Because a full width drawer is a bad home for small things. The two top drawers run 38cm to 43cm wide, which suits socks, underwear, belts and jewellery, while the three below run 80cm to 88cm wide for folded jumpers and denim. Which is better for a small bedroom? The tallboy, on floor space alone. It occupies 0.45 square metres against the chest at 0.63, which is 40 percent less floor for a similar amount of storage. The trade is that you lose the usable surface at hip height. Do tallboys need to be anchored to the wall? Yes. Anything over a metre tall with drawers that pull out is top heavy once the upper drawers are loaded, and a child climbing an open drawer can bring it over. Fix it to a stud or use a rated plasterboard anchor, particularly in a child's room. Related Posts Tallboy vs Chest of Drawers: Which One Should You Choose? Chest of Drawers Height: Standard Sizes and Choosing Guide How to Choose a Tallboy: The Ultimate Guide for Bedroom Storage 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.
