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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. Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard 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. Oxford Acacia TV Unit [products-of-collection collection="farmhouse-furniture" heading="Shop the Farmhouse Range" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-farmhouse-1"] 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. Oxford Acacia Dining Table 240cm 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. Oxford Acacia Coffee Table 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. Related Posts Modern Farmhouse Style: What It Is and How to Use It Well Byron vs Oxford: Two Acacia Ranges Compared The 21cm That Decides Which Sideboard Works in Your Dining Room 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 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 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.
The Oxford range is eleven pieces of solid acacia, all dining and living. There is no Oxford bed. Here is the bedroom range that actually matches it.
Acacia is solid timber, so tone and grain vary between pieces and batches. Why two Cedora acacia pieces differ, and how to order so they sit close.
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 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 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 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 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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