There are four dining benches in the entire Cedora catalogue, and they all belong to one range. That is not an oversight. A bench is a piece of furniture that only works when it is built to the table it sits at, and once you look at the numbers you can see exactly how tightly the two are tied together. The Richmond bench comes in 158cm and 208cm. The Richmond table comes in 190cm and 240cm. Line those up and the bench is 32cm shorter than its table, both times, which is the sort of coincidence that is never a coincidence. Key Takeaways Two lengths only: 158cm for the 190cm table, 208cm for the 240cm table. Every bench is 40cm deep and 46cm high, in natural or black. Forty centimetres deep against 62cm for a chair, so the bench vanishes when pushed in. A 76cm table over a 46cm seat leaves 30cm of knee room, which is the comfortable range. Seating is three on the short bench and four on the long one, at about 52cm each. Always 32cm Shorter Than the Table The Richmond Pine Dining Bench 158cm - Natural is built for the 190cm table and the Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Natural for the 240cm. In both cases the bench is 32cm shorter, which puts 16cm of clearance at each end. That clearance is the whole reason the pairing works. Both the table and the bench stand on open frame legs set in from the corners, so a bench sized to match slides between the table legs rather than colliding with them. Buy a bench from somewhere else at the same length as your table and it will stop 10cm short of pushed in, forever, and you will notice it every time you walk past. It also means the sizing decision is already made for you. If the table is 190cm, the bench is 158cm. There is no judgement call, no measuring the underside of the apron, and no chance of getting it wrong. Both lengths also come in black, which matches the black tables in the same range. Forty Centimetres Deep Is Why It Disappears Here is the number that actually changes a room. The bench is 40cm deep. A Richmond dining chair is 62cm deep. The 240cm table is 100cm across, so the top overhangs 50cm from the centre line on each side, which means a pushed in bench sits completely underneath it and a pushed in chair never can. In a dining room that has enough space, nobody cares. In the room most Australians actually eat in, which is the end of an open plan living area with a walkway on one side, it decides whether the space works. Put the bench on the traffic side and you get back 22cm of floor compared with chairs, every hour of the day that nobody is eating. There is a scenario every family recognises. Someone is carrying a full plate from the kitchen, someone else is coming the other way with the salad, and the gap between the table and the couch is the width of one chair back. Replace that row of chairs with a bench, push it in, and the pinch point stops existing. [products-of-collection collection="richmond" heading="Shop the Richmond Collection" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-bench-1"] Thirty Centimetres of Knee Room Every Cedora dining table is 76cm high and the bench seat is 46cm, which leaves exactly 30cm between the two. That is the top of the comfortable range: below about 25cm your thighs press against the underside of the table, and above about 32cm you are sitting low enough that eating feels like a stretch. What the bench does not have is a back, and that is worth being honest about. For a weeknight dinner that lasts twenty minutes, nobody misses it. For a long lunch that runs into the afternoon, the people on the bench start leaning on the table and the people in the chairs do not, and you will hear about it. Which is why the sets that include one pair the two. The 190cm table with four chairs and a bench and the 240cm version with the longer bench both keep chairs on one side and a bench on the other. Guests get the backrest, the household gets the bench, and everybody is quietly happy with the arrangement. The Seat Count Is Optimistic, and That Is Fine The 158cm bench is listed as seating up to three and the 208cm up to four. Divide it out and that is about 52cm per person, which is the width the industry uses and which is genuinely fine for most people most of the time. It is also the reason a bench is the best seat in the house for children. Three kids on a bench take up less space than three kids on chairs, they cannot tip backwards on two legs, and there is no argument about whose chair is whose. The same 52cm that feels tight for four adults at a long dinner is generous for a nine year old and a seven year old with room to spare. The real cost of a bench is not width, it is access. Whoever sits in the middle has to wait for the person on the end to stand up, and if the bench is against a wall everybody shuffles. Put the bench on the open side of the table, keep the Richmond Pine Dining Chair Set of 2 - Natural for the people who get up during dinner, and that problem disappears. The Bench Adds a Seat the Chairs Cannot The Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm - Natural is rated for six people when it is surrounded by chairs. Swap one side for the 158cm bench and the same table is rated for seven, because a bench does not have to divide its length into whole chairs. Wherever there is 50cm of clear seat, one more person fits. That is the trick a bench pulls at Christmas. Nobody carries a spare dining chair in from the study when the table is full, because there is nowhere to put it, but a bench absorbs the extra cousin without anyone rearranging the room. On the 240cm table the same logic applies at a larger scale, and the long bench takes four adults or five children depending on who turns up. Price per seat runs the same direction. Bought on its own, a bench works out at a little over half the cost of the equivalent number of dining chairs, so a table with a bench on one side is consistently the cheaper way to seat the same number of people. The 208cm bench in black sits under the black tables on exactly the same maths. Where the Bench Goes When It Is Not at the Table A dining chair in a bedroom looks like a dining chair that got lost. A bench does not, and this is the quiet argument for buying one. At 40cm deep and 46cm high it is the same proportion as a purpose built end of bed bench, so it can sit at the foot of a queen and hold folded towels without looking like it wandered in from another room. The black one earns its keep in an entry. A bench by the front door is where shoes come off, where the bag lands, and where a visitor sits to unlace boots, and at 208cm it does that along a whole wall without cutting into the passage the way a hall chair does. In a house with kids and a school run, it is the most used piece of furniture you will buy. That flexibility is the honest reason to take the bench over the extra pair of chairs. Two more chairs are two more chairs. A bench is dining seating that can become bedroom furniture in ten years when the household changes, and it costs meaningfully less per seat than the chairs it replaces. The full Richmond range is built so it can move rooms without looking out of place. Frequently Asked Questions What size dining bench do I need? One about 30cm shorter than your table. Cedora makes a 158cm bench for the 190cm table and a 208cm bench for the 240cm table, a gap of exactly 32cm in both cases, which keeps the ends of the bench clear of the table legs so it can push all the way in. How high should a dining bench be? Around 45cm to 47cm for a standard 76cm table. These benches are 46cm, which leaves 30cm between the seat and the underside of the table top. Less than about 25cm and adults sit with their thighs against the table. How many people fit on a dining bench? Three on the 158cm and four on the 208cm, which works out to roughly 52cm of bench per person. That is comfortable for children and for a quick weeknight dinner, and tight for four adults settling in for three hours. Does a dining bench save space? Yes, and the number is 22cm. The bench is 40cm deep against 62cm for a dining chair, so pushed in it sits entirely under the table top while a chair still projects. In a narrow room that is the difference between squeezing past and walking past. Can a dining bench be used somewhere other than the dining room? Easily, and plenty are. At 40cm deep and 46cm high it works at the foot of a bed for folded linen, along an entry wall as a place to put shoes on, or under a window. It is one of the few dining pieces that still makes sense in another room. 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Same space. Different character. A room doesn’t need to change completely to feel entirely new. The furniture you choose, the materials you introduce and the way you layer a space can transform its character. From relaxed Modern Coastal to pared-back Modern Scandinavian and timeless Classic Hamptons, one dining room can tell three very different stories. Here’s how to find the look that feels most like home. LOOK 01: Modern Coastal Relaxed, natural and made for easy living. Modern Coastal style takes its cues from the Australian lifestyle - light-filled spaces, natural textures and an effortless connection between indoors and out. Rather than filling the room with obvious coastal motifs, keep the palette soft and understated. Think warm timber, off-white upholstery, woven textures, natural linen and subtle organic shapes. At the centre of the room, choose a dining table with warmth and presence. The Oxford Acacia Dining Table is a natural fit. Its warm timber character and substantial proportions create a relaxed focal point while maintaining the refined feel associated with Modern Coastal interiors. Pair it with light upholstered dining chairs, a textured rug and an oversized ceramic vessel filled with native greenery. Complete the space with an Oxford Sideboard to bring practical storage and visual balance to the room. Cedora pieces to create the look Oxford Acacia Dining Table 190cm Oxford Acacia Dining Table 240cm Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard Oxford Acacia Side Table Styling palette:Warm timber · Soft white · Sand · Natural linen · Woven textures The feeling:Light. Relaxed. Refined. Perfect for a home that feels like summer, all year round. Oxford Acacia Dining Table 190cm LOOK 02: Modern Scandinavian Clean, warm and quietly considered. Modern Scandinavian interiors prove that simplicity doesn’t have to feel cold. The key is balancing clean lines and functional design with materials that introduce warmth and texture. Keep the room uncluttered and allow a few considered pieces to define the space. For this look, make the Richmond Dining Table the hero. Its clean silhouette and natural timber character give the room structure without overwhelming it, while the understated design makes it easy to layer with contemporary dining chairs and softer decorative elements. Continue the look with a Richmond Sideboard or Richmond Console Table, then introduce a neutral rug, sculptural ceramics, linen and a simple pendant above the dining table. Leave some negative space too. In Scandinavian-inspired interiors, what you leave out can be just as important as what you bring in. Cedora pieces to create the look Richmond Dining Table – Natural Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural Richmond Pine 2 Drawer Console Table - Natural For a stronger contrast, selected Richmond pieces in Black can introduce a more graphic, contemporary edge. Styling palette:Natural timber · Warm white · Oatmeal · Black accents · Soft neutrals The feeling:Calm. Functional. Effortless. For those who believe less can feel like more. Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm - Natural Richmond Pine 2 Drawer Console Table - Natural LOOK 03: Classic Hamptons Timeless, elegant and beautifully balanced. Classic Hamptons style brings a more structured sense of elegance to the home. Symmetry, generous proportions and refined detailing are central to the look, balanced by a soft neutral palette that keeps the room inviting rather than overly formal. This is where the London Collection comes into its own. While London is especially suited to creating a complete Classic Hamptons bedroom, its design language offers the perfect inspiration for carrying the look throughout the home: considered proportions, timeless detailing and a sophisticated yet comfortable character. For a Hamptons-inspired dining space, build around classic furniture silhouettes and layer the room with upholstered seating, soft neutral textiles and elegant accessories. Add a large statement pendant above the table, introduce ceramic or glass décor and keep styling balanced on either side of the room. If you want to carry the same aesthetic into the bedroom, the London Bed Frame creates a strong Hamptons focal point, complemented by matching bedside and storage pieces. Cedora pieces to create the look London Pine Bed Frame London Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table London matching bedroom storage pieces Styling palette:Crisp white · Warm neutral · Soft grey · Natural timber · Classic detailing The feeling:Elegant. Comfortable. Timeless. Classic style, designed for the way we live today. London Pine Queen Bed Frame with 2 Drawers Same Room. Your Style. There is no single formula for creating a beautiful home. You might be drawn to the relaxed warmth of Modern Coastal, the quiet simplicity of Modern Scandinavian, or the timeless elegance of Classic Hamptons. The difference often comes down to a few considered choices - the shape of a table, the warmth of timber, the texture of a chair or the way accessories are layered around the room. Start with the piece that speaks to you. Then build your room around it. One Room. Three Ways. Same space. Different character. Discover the Cedora collections and find the style that feels like home. 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No two pieces are exactly alike. There is something special about bringing natural timber into the home. From the individual grain patterns and subtle tonal variations to the knots and markings formed naturally over time, every piece of timber carries its own character. No two surfaces are ever the same - and that individuality is part of what makes timber furniture so enduring. At Cedora, we embrace these natural variations rather than hide them. They bring warmth, texture and a sense of authenticity to furniture designed for real, everyday Australian homes. Nature, in Every Detail Look closely at a timber surface and you’ll find details that cannot simply be replicated. The direction of the grain. A subtle shift from one tone to another. Natural knots and markings unique to that piece. These characteristics are not imperfections. They are part of the natural beauty of timber, giving every table, bed, sideboard or console its own individual finish. It means the piece that arrives in your home is uniquely yours. Designed Around Natural Character Across Cedora collections, timber takes on a different personality depending on the design surrounding it. Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm Byron - Coastal Contemporary Warm acacia timber and clean, contemporary proportions give the Byron Collection its relaxed Australian coastal character. The natural variation of acacia becomes part of the design, bringing depth and warmth to dining and living spaces without making them feel overly formal. Featured pieces:Byron Acacia Dining Table 190cm Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm Byron Acacia 3 Drawer Console Table Natural warmth, made for relaxed living. Liverpool Natural - Contemporary Scandinavian The Liverpool Bedroom Collection takes a softer, more understated approach to timber. Its natural finish, simple lines and Scandinavian-inspired proportions allow the warmth and texture of the material to become a defining part of the bedroom. From the bed frame to matching storage pieces, Liverpool creates a calm, cohesive space where natural character does the talking. Featured pieces:Liverpool Pine King Size Bed Frame – Natural Liverpool Pine Queen Size Bed Frame – Natural Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest – Natural Liverpool Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy – Natural Liverpool Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table – Natural Simple by design. Naturally individual. Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Natural Richmond - Modern Scandinavian Clean lines meet natural warmth in the Richmond Collection. With its modern Scandinavian influence, Richmond celebrates timber through restrained forms and an understated palette. Oak veneer brings natural grain and texture to the surface, complemented by timber construction to create furniture that feels warm, considered and easy to live with. From dining tables to sideboards and consoles, each piece brings a sense of natural character into contemporary Australian interiors. Featured pieces:Richmond Dining Table – Natural Richmond Sideboard – Natural Richmond Console Table – Natural Modern simplicity, grounded in nature. Made by Nature. Made for Your Home. Natural timber does not strive for perfect uniformity - and that is precisely its beauty. Variations in grain, knots, texture and tone mean your furniture may look slightly different from the piece photographed online or displayed in a showroom. Rather than taking away from the design, these natural characteristics give each piece its individuality. Furniture becomes more than something that simply fills a room. It brings texture. Warmth. Character. And a little piece of nature into the spaces where everyday life happens. Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Natural The Beauty of Natural Timber Unique nature. Designed for everyday living. Discover Cedora’s timber collections online at Cedora.com.au. Related Posts How to Fix Scratches on Solid Timber: Simple DIY Solutions Choosing the Right Timber Furniture for Timber Floors Thirty-One Acacia Pieces, and the Timber Only Shows on Twenty-Three Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Why does some furniture simply never feels outdated. Trends change. Colours come and go. Shapes evolve. What feels new today may look very different a few years from now. But some pieces seem to sit quietly outside of that cycle. They don’t demand attention. They don’t need to follow every new direction. Instead, they continue to feel at home as the spaces around them change. So, what gives furniture that lasting quality? Often, it comes down to a few simple things: thoughtful proportions, natural materials, restrained colours, considered silhouettes and a design that works beautifully in everyday life. It Starts with Proportion Before colour, styling or decoration, there is proportion. Furniture that feels balanced within a room has ease to it. A bed with presence without overwhelming space. A dining table is generous enough to gather around. Storage that feels substantial yet considered. Good proportions are easy to overlook. And perhaps that is the point. When they are right, a piece simply feels as though it belongs. The London and Manchester Collections capture this beautifully. Inspired by Classic Hamptons interiors, their balanced forms and timeless detailing bring a sense of structure and familiarity to the bedroom. They feel established rather than trend-led - pieces designed to remain relevant as bedding, colours and accessories around them evolve. Let Materials Speak Natural materials have a character that is difficult to imitate. Timber brings warmth through grain, texture and subtle tonal variation. It can sit comfortably alongside linen and woven textures today, then be restyled with completely different colours and finishes years from now. The Byron Collection embraces this natural warmth through acacia timber and a relaxed Coastal Contemporary aesthetic. The Byron Dining Table allows the material to become part of the room’s character. Style it with soft neutrals and organic textures for a coastal setting or introduce contemporary chairs and sculptural accessories for a more modern expression. The furniture is on. The room around it can evolve. London Pine Queen Bed Frame with 2 Drawers Keep the Palette Quiet There is a reason natural timber, white, black and warm neutral finishes continue to return to our homes. They give us room to change. A restrained foundation allows colour and personality to come from the things that are easier to evolve over time - artwork, rugs, cushions, lighting and objects collected along the way. Furniture doesn’t always need to be the loudest voice in the room. Sometimes its role is simply to hold everything together. The Richmond Collection, with its Modern Scandinavian character, reflects this approach through clean forms, natural finishes and an understated aesthetic. A Richmond Dining Table or Sideboard can become part of many different interiors because its design leaves space for the home around it to have a personality of its own. Simplicity Leaves Room for Change The simplest furniture isn’t necessarily the easiest to design. When unnecessary details are removed, proportion, material and craftsmanship become more visible. Clean silhouettes also give furniture something particularly valuable: versatility. A dining table can move from a minimalist interior to a warmer, layered home. A simple sideboard can be styled beneath contemporary artwork today and a large mirror years later. This is where Richmond’s Modern Scandinavian simplicity and Byron’s Coastal Contemporary character find common ground. Their styles are different, but both allow the natural character of the furniture to lead rather than relying on decoration alone. Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm And It Still Has to Work A beautiful piece that doesn’t work for everyday life rarely feels timeless for very long. The furniture we keep is often the furniture that continues to serve us. The dining table has enough room when friends come over. The bedside table that keeps everyday essentials within reach. The chest of drawers that quietly keeps a bedroom organised. The sideboard that stores what we need while giving the room somewhere to display the things we love. Function may not be the first thing we notice about a beautiful piece of furniture. But it is often the reason it stays with us. A Home Should Evolve Timeless design doesn’t mean creating a home that never changes. Quite the opposite. Our homes should change with us. New artwork appears. A different rug changes the mood of a room. Chairs are moved around. Families grow. Styles become softer, bolder or more personal. The right furniture makes those changes somewhere to happen. From the enduring Classic Hamptons character of London and Manchester to the understated Modern Scandinavian simplicity of Richmond and the relaxed Coastal Contemporary warmth of Byron, each Cedora collection offers a different point of view. Not designed around what is popular for a moment. Designed around what makes a home feel good for years. Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard Beyond Trends Perhaps timeless furniture isn’t furniture that never changes. It’s furniture that gives you the freedom to change everything around it. Designed for today. Made to belong for years to come. Discover Cedora Collections. Related Posts The Beauty of Natural Timber A Home Made for Living Designed for the Way We Live Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Some of life’s best moments happen around the dining table. The first coffee of the morning.Breakfast before everyone rushes out the door. Homework spreads across one end of the table while dinner is being prepared at the other. It’s where we sit down for a quick weeknight meal and somehow stay talking long after the plates are empty. Where Sunday lunch turns into afternoon coffee. Where friends become family, birthdays are celebrated, and at Christmas, we always seem to find room for one more chair. A dining table may begin as a piece of furniture. But over time, it becomes part of the family. A Place for Everyday Moments Most memories aren’t made on special occasions. They’re made in the little moments that happen every day. A sleepy breakfast.An after-school snack. A cup of tea with someone you love. Dinner together after a long day. For these everyday moments, a 190cm dining table gives you room to gather while still feeling intimate. The Oxford Acacia Dining Table 190cm brings the relaxed warmth of Modern Coastal living into the home, while the Richmond Dining Table 190cm offers a clean, understated Modern Scandinavian feel. Different in character, but designed for the same thing: Bringing people together. When Everyone Comes Over Then there are the days when the house feels a little fuller. Someone brings dessert. Someone else arrives early. The kids are running between rooms, another bottle is opened, and somehow lunch lasts until sunset. These are the moments a generous dining table was made for. With more space to gather, a 240cm dining table gives everyone a place at the table - whether it’s Sunday lunch, Christmas Day or simply dinner with the people you don’t see often enough. The Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm brings warm timber character and relaxed Coastal Contemporary style to these larger gatherings. For a lighter Modern Coastal setting, the Oxford Acacia Dining Table 240cm creates an equally generous place to come together. Because when everyone is home, having a little extra room matters. Byron Acacia Dining Table 160cm 190cm or 240cm? Perhaps the question isn’t simply, “Which size fits my dining room?” Maybe it’s: “How do I imagine living around it?” Choose 190cm for everyday family meals, morning coffees and smaller gatherings. Choose 240cm if yours is the home where everyone gathers - where dinners get bigger, celebrations get louder and there is always space for another guest. Choose the table that fits not only your room, but the life you want to create around it. Find the One That Feels Like Home For relaxed Coastal Contemporary living, discover the warmth of the Byron Dining Collection. For a refined Modern Coastal / Hamptons home, explore the Oxford Dining Collection. For understated Modern Scandinavian simplicity, meet the Richmond Dining Collection. Three different expressions of Australian living. All created around the same idea: Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm A place to gather. More Than a Place to Eat Years from now, you may not remember every meal served at your dining table. But you’ll remember the people who sat around it. The birthdays. The Christmas lunches. Ordinary Tuesday nights. The conversations that went on were too long. And all those little moments that didn’t feel important at the time but somehow became the ones worth remembering. Because the heart of a home isn’t always a room. Sometimes, it’s simply the table we keep coming back to. Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Black The Australian Dining Table More than a place to eat. A place to gather, connect and belong. Find a table that fits the way you live. Discover Cedora Dining Collections. Related Posts Six Seater or Eight Seater Dining Table? A Dining Bench Is 32cm Shorter Than the Table, and That Is Deliberate Are Dining Sets Worth Buying? Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
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.
Oak is the most-used and least-checked word in furniture retail. It carries a hundred years of association with things that last, it appears in product titles far more often than it appears in actual structures, and almost nobody asks the follow-up question, which is: oak where, exactly? In the Cedora range oak turns up in 75 of 128 pieces, across three collections. Not one of them is solid oak from top to floor. That sounds like a confession and it is not, because the three ways the timber is used are each the right answer to a different problem. Here is the full picture, with nothing rounded up. Key Takeaways Oak is in 75 of 128 pieces, across Liverpool, Richmond and Bristol. Richmond: solid oak legs on all 27 pieces, pine structure between them. Bristol: a solid oak top on all eight pieces, pine carcass underneath. Liverpool: oak veneer over a solid pine frame on 34 pieces, plus six bed frames using oak-finished MDF. No Cedora piece is solid oak throughout, and the price reflects that honestly. The Three Jobs Oak Is Doing Timber in furniture is not one decision, it is three, and they pull in different directions. A leg has to survive being kicked, knocked by a chair and dragged across a floor. A tabletop has to resist wear across a broad flat plane. A wide panel, like the side of a wardrobe or the top of a long sideboard, mostly has to stay flat through summers that swing forty degrees and winters that do not. Solid hardwood is excellent at the first two and demonstrably worse at the third. A single wide oak board wants to cup as it takes on and gives up moisture, which is why traditional cabinetmakers built wide surfaces from frames and panels rather than one slab. Modern makers solve the same problem with a stable core and a real timber face. So a catalogue that uses oak three different ways is not being inconsistent. It is answering three different questions. What matters for a buyer is knowing which answer you are getting, because the three cost different amounts to make and behave differently in your house. Richmond: Solid Oak, in the Legs All 27 Richmond pieces are listed as solid oak legs with a pine structure. The oak sits exactly where the abuse lands. On the Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural, a two and a half metre span, the closed timber loop at each end takes every chair that gets pushed back, every vacuum head, and every foot that finds it in the dark. The same reasoning runs down through the range. A Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard or a Richmond Pine Coffee Table carries the same leg frame, which is why the pieces read as related from across a room even when only one is visible. What you are not getting is an oak carcass. The structure between those legs is pine, and Richmond is priced as what it is. If you want the practical benefit of oak, which is a corner that shrugs off a decade of contact, this is where it lives. If you want the mass and the sound of a solid hardwood cabinet, this is not that. [products-of-collection collection="richmond" heading="Oak Legs, Pine Structure" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-oak-1"] Bristol: Solid Oak, on the Top Bristol's eight pieces invert it. Here the oak is a solid top over a painted pine carcass, which puts the hardwood on the only plane that meets a lamp base, a coffee cup, a set of car keys thrown down at the end of the day. On a Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest or a Bristol Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table that is a genuinely efficient allocation. The sides and back of a chest of drawers are touched by a vacuum cleaner twice a year. The top is touched every single day. Spending the material budget on the square metre that gets used, and painting the rest, is the choice most furniture buyers would make themselves if anyone laid it out for them. It also gives the range its look. A warm oak plane against a white painted body is the whole visual idea behind Bristol, and it is the reason the pieces read as Scandinavian rather than as painted bedroom furniture. The material decision and the design decision are the same decision. Bristol Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy Liverpool: Oak as a Surface, Not a Structure Liverpool is the largest range at forty pieces, and the one where the word needs the most care. Thirty-four are recorded as a solid pine frame with oak veneer. The remaining six bed frames are pine with oak-finished MDF and a fabric headboard. Veneer has an undeserved reputation, mostly earned by the plastic wood-look laminates of the 1980s, which are not the same thing at all. A real veneer is a thin layer of actual oak bonded to a stable core. The surface you see and touch is oak. What it is sitting on is engineered not to move, which across the wide panels Liverpool uses is a functional advantage rather than a cost saving dressed up as one. The honest limitation is repair. A deep gouge in a solid oak top can be sanded out. The same gouge in a veneer goes through to the core and cannot. If you have a household that is hard on surfaces, that difference is worth more than any spec sheet comparison, and it points you toward the solid-topped ranges instead. Liverpool Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Natural What Solid Oak Throughout Would Actually Cost This is the part usually left out. Oak is expensive as a raw material and more expensive again as a finished one, because wide boards have to be selected, dried slowly and machined with allowances for movement. A chest of drawers built entirely from solid oak is not ten or twenty per cent dearer than one built from pine with an oak top. It is a different category of purchase. That is why almost nobody at this end of the market sells it, and why any listing that says solid oak at a mid-range price deserves a second look at the specification rather than the headline. The question to ask is never "is it oak", it is "oak where, and how thick". If you are comparing across shops, three checks settle it in a showroom. Look at the end grain on a tabletop, where solid timber shows a different pattern to the face. Run a finger along an edge and feel whether the face grain turns the corner or stops at a banded strip. And lift a corner, because solid hardwood announces its weight in a way nothing else does. Which One You Should Actually Buy If the piece is a table or a bench you eat at daily, the argument favours the Richmond range. Legs are the failure point on dining furniture and solid oak there is a real, felt difference over years, not a specification you take on faith. If the piece is bedroom storage in a small room, Bristol's solid top is the better allocation. The top is the working surface in a bedroom, the carcass is not, and the range's proportions were drawn around light structural timber in a way an all-hardwood range could not match. And if you want one look running across a whole house, Liverpool is the only range broad enough to do it, at forty pieces covering bedroom, dining and living. That breadth is what the veneer buys. Knowing that going in is the entire point of this article, and it is a far better position to buy from than assuming the word on the label means something it does not. [products-of-collection collection="bristol" heading="Solid Oak Tops" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-oak-2"] Frequently Asked Questions Does Cedora sell solid oak furniture? Not solid oak throughout. Oak appears in 75 of the 128 pieces, but always in a specific role: solid oak legs on Richmond, solid oak tops on Bristol, and oak veneer over a pine frame on Liverpool. No piece is solid oak from top to floor. Is oak veneer worse than solid oak? Not for a wide panel. A thin oak surface bonded to a stable core moves less with heat and humidity than a solid board of the same width, so it is less likely to cup or split. Solid oak wins on edge damage, because a veneer surface cannot be sanded back the same way. Which Cedora range has real solid oak? Two of them. Richmond uses solid oak for the legs on all 27 pieces, and Bristol uses a solid oak top across its eight. In both cases the rest of the structure is pine. How can I tell veneer from solid timber in person? Look at the edges and the end grain. On solid timber the grain on the face continues around the edge and the pattern on the end is different again. On veneer the edge is usually a separate banded strip, and the face pattern stops rather than turns. Why would a maker use oak in three different ways? Because the demands are different. Legs take impact, tops take wear, and wide panels need to stay flat. Solid oak suits the first two and veneer over a stable core suits the third. Using one material everywhere would make some parts worse, not better. Related Posts Solid Wood vs Veneer vs MDF: Which Furniture Is Best for You? Pine Is in 105 of Cedora's 128 Pieces. Here Is Where It Hides. 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.
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.
Open the Scandinavian collection and you get 49 pieces, which sounds like one coherent range until you look at what is actually in it. Three separate ranges sit under that one label, and none of them furnishes a whole house on its own. That matters because of how people buy. Almost nobody buys 49 pieces. They buy a dining table now, a bedroom in six months, and they want the second purchase to look like it belongs with the first. Here is what genuinely lines up between the three, and what does not. Key Takeaways Richmond is 27 of the 49 pieces and the only range covering dining and living. Liverpool contributes 14 bedroom pieces and Bristol 8, and neither does dining. Every case piece across all three is 45cm deep, and every chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm. Richmond and Liverpool are bare timber; Bristol is painted white with a timber top. The two mirrors in the collection are different shapes: 100cm square and 90cm round. One Label, Three Ranges, and Only One Dining Room Richmond is the workhorse. Its 27 pieces cover the Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm - Natural, chairs, two bench lengths, a sideboard, a console, a Richmond Pine Coffee Table - Natural, a TV unit and an end table. If your dining and living areas run into each other, as most Australian open plan levels do, one range does the whole floor. What Richmond does not make is a bed. Not in any size, not in either finish. So the moment you walk out of the shared rooms and into a bedroom, the Scandinavian collection hands you over to a different range entirely, and you have two of them to choose between. Liverpool brings 14 bedroom pieces to the collection: three bed sizes in two finishes, bedside tables, chests, tallboys and a mirror. Bristol brings 8, covering the same list in one finish. Both are complete bedrooms. Neither has a single dining piece in this collection, which is the split nobody notices until they are halfway through furnishing. Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Natural The Boxes Match, the Fronts Do Not Here is the part that makes mixing safe. Every case piece in all three ranges is 45cm deep. Every six drawer chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm, whether it is the Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Natural or the Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest. Every tallboy is 100cm wide and 45cm deep. So two pieces from two ranges will sit on the same wall, project the same distance into the room and line up along the top within a couple of centimetres. That is not a small thing. It means a Bristol chest and a Liverpool tallboy in the same bedroom will read as a planned pair rather than two pieces that happen to be there. The bedside tables are the exception worth knowing. The Liverpool Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table - Natural is 60cm wide and 55.9cm high. The Bristol Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table is 55cm wide and 60cm high. Same depth, but one is wide and low and the other narrow and tall, so a matched pair either side of a bed has to come from the same range. Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest [products-of-collection collection="scandinavian-furniture" heading="Shop the Scandinavian Range" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-scandi-1"] Richmond Is Bare Timber, Bristol Is Painted Where the three ranges genuinely part company is the surface. Richmond is bare timber throughout, with oak legs on a pine structure and a natural or black finish. Nothing is painted, and the joinery is left visible in the open frame legs that run under the tables and benches. Liverpool is also bare timber, a pine frame with an oak veneer, in a warmer oak tone or black. The bedroom pieces add one thing Richmond does not have anywhere: the bed frames carry an upholstered headboard and footboard panel set into the timber, which softens a room in a way no amount of grain does. Bristol is the odd one out and deliberately so. It is painted white with a timber top on the case pieces, and the Bristol Pine Queen Bed Frame has a slatted headboard rather than a solid or upholstered one. In a small or dark bedroom that white carcass throws light back into the room, which the bare timber ranges cannot do. Bristol Pine Queen Bed Frame Which Bedroom Range Goes With Richmond Downstairs Picture the actual moment this gets decided. The Richmond table went in eighteen months ago, the room works, and now the spare bedroom has to stop being a spare bedroom because a baby is coming or your mother is moving in. You are standing in a showroom with a photo on your phone, trying to remember whether the table was warm or grey, and the two bedroom ranges in front of you look nothing like each other. Here is the honest answer. If the dining and living rooms are Richmond in natural, the Liverpool bedroom continues the same idea: bare timber, similar warmth, no change of language when you walk through the house. If the bedroom is small, north facing onto a fence, or the room in the house that never gets light, Bristol is the better answer even though it does not match. White painted furniture in a dark bedroom is worth more than continuity is, and a bedroom is a room nobody sees from the dining table anyway. The one combination to avoid is Bristol and Liverpool together in the same bedroom. Painted white against bare oak tone at close range reads as two sets of furniture rather than one, and unlike the room to room question there is nowhere for the eye to rest between them. Pick one range per bedroom and the collection behaves itself. Richmond Pine Coffee Table - Natural The Two Mirrors Are Not the Same Shape A detail that catches people out when they order two rooms at once. The Bristol Pine Mirror is a 100cm square with a timber top rail, sized to sit on the matching chest. The Liverpool Pine Mirror - Natural is a 90cm circle, 4cm deep, made to hang on a wall on its own. They are not interchangeable, and the difference is not decorative. A square mirror on a chest inherits the chest's height and shows you from about the ankles up. A round mirror you hang wherever you like, so it can be centred at standing eye level and actually used to check an outfit. If you are furnishing two bedrooms from this collection, that is the thing to decide first, before the chest and well before the bed. The mirror determines whether the chest needs to go on a wall you can stand back from, and moving a chest after the fact is a two person job nobody enjoys. Buying It in the Right Order Start with the shared rooms. Richmond covers dining and living completely, it is the range visitors actually see, and it is the one where a piece bought later has to match something bought earlier. Get the table and the sideboard right and the rest of the floor follows. Do the bedroom second, as a separate decision rather than an extension of the first one. It is a different room, a different range, and the only thing it needs to inherit is the general restraint: 45cm deep case pieces, uncluttered fronts, no ornament. That is what the label is describing, not a single timber tone. What ties it together in the end is the depth grid rather than the colour. Everything in the Scandinavian range comes 45cm off the wall, which is why a house furnished from three of its ranges over three years still reads as one decision rather than three shopping trips. Nobody visiting counts the ranges. They just notice that the place hangs together. Frequently Asked Questions Can you mix furniture ranges in the same house? Across rooms, easily. In the same room, only if the finishes agree. Richmond and Liverpool are both bare timber so they sit together comfortably, while Bristol is painted white with a timber top and reads as a different family beside either of them. Which Cedora range covers a dining room in Scandinavian style? Richmond, and only Richmond. Its 27 pieces cover the dining table, chairs, benches, sideboard, console, coffee table, TV unit and end table. Liverpool and Bristol contribute bedroom pieces to the same collection and nothing for the dining room. Do the chests of drawers from different ranges match in size? The boxes do. Every six drawer chest in the collection is 140 x 45 x 85cm, and every tallboy is 100cm wide and 45cm deep. What changes is the handle, the base detail and the finish, so two chests will line up on a wall and still look different. What is the difference between the Bristol and Liverpool bedside tables? Five centimetres of width and four of height. The Liverpool is 60cm wide and 55.9cm high, the Bristol is 55cm wide and 60cm high. Both are 45cm deep. The Liverpool sits lower than most mattresses and the Bristol sits level with them. Is Scandinavian furniture always pale timber? Not in this range. Richmond and Liverpool both come in a black finish alongside the natural, and Bristol is painted white with a timber top. The common thread is the uncluttered profile rather than the colour. Related Posts Scandinavian Interior Design: A Practical Guide Scandinavian Bedroom and Dining: Create a Calm and Cohesive Home 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.
There are 33 pieces of black furniture in this catalogue and they behave differently from every other group in it. Black is not a range and it is not a style. It is a finish that runs across two ranges and stops dead at the edge of them. What that means in practice is that you can furnish three entire rooms in it, and the moment you want a fourth thing, the answer is often no. Here is exactly what black covers, room by room, and the two places where it runs out. Key Takeaways Thirty three black pieces: 20 from Liverpool and 13 from Richmond, and nothing else. A complete black bedroom exists, and every piece of it is Liverpool. The dining room is the only one where both ranges give you a choice. Both coffee tables are 45cm high, but the sideboards are 11cm apart. Six of the eight ranges have no black version of any piece. Thirty Three Pieces, Two Ranges, Three Rooms The split is 20 Liverpool and 13 Richmond. Between them they cover bed frames, bedside tables, chests, tallboys, mirrors, dining tables, dining chairs, benches, sideboards, consoles, coffee tables, TV units and a side table. On paper that is a whole house. Underneath the finish, both ranges are the same construction they are in natural: Liverpool is a solid pine frame with an oak veneer, Richmond is oak legs on a pine structure. Nothing is built differently to take the dark finish, which is why the black pieces carry the same dimensions as their pale twins to the millimetre. The grain still shows, and that is worth knowing before you order. This is not a painted flat black, it is a dark finish over open grained timber, so the surface reads as timber that happens to be black rather than as a lacquered panel. In direct Australian sun the grain is clearly visible from across a room. The Black Bedroom Is Liverpool, and Only Liverpool Seven pieces make a complete bedroom, and every one of them comes from the same range. The Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Black carries an upholstered headboard and footboard panel set into a black timber frame, which is the detail that keeps a dark bed from reading as a slab. Around it sit the Liverpool Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table - Black at 60 x 45 x 55.9cm, the Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Black at 140 x 45 x 85cm and the Liverpool Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy - Black at 100 x 45 x 100cm. The chest drawers are 24.6cm deep inside, the deepest in the catalogue in any finish. The Liverpool Pine Mirror - Black finishes it: a 90cm circle, 4cm deep, hung rather than rested. A round black mirror on a pale wall above a black chest is the single most effective thing you can do with this range, because the wall does the lifting and the furniture does not have to. Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Black [products-of-collection collection="black-furniture" heading="Every Piece Offered in Black" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-black26-1"] The Dining Room Is the One With a Choice This is the only room where black gives you two genuinely different options. The Liverpool Pine Dining Table 190cm - Black sits on a solid panel base with softly rounded edges. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Black sits on an open frame that you can see through and under. That difference matters more in black than it does in natural. A dark solid base reads as a block of shadow under the table, and in a smaller dining room it can make the whole piece feel heavier than it is. An open frame in the same finish keeps the floor visible underneath, which is the reason the Richmond version handles a tight room better. Richmond also brings the only black bench in the catalogue. The Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Black pushes fully under the table because it is 40cm deep against a chair's 62cm, and in black, tucked in, it effectively disappears. If your dining area is a walkway as much as a room, that combination is the strongest argument in the whole range. Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Black The Living Room, and the One Gap Coffee tables, TV units and consoles all come in black from both ranges. The Richmond Pine 2 Drawer TV Unit - Black is 160 x 45 x 55cm and the Richmond Pine Coffee Table - Black is 120 x 60 x 45cm, both with the open frame detail that runs through the range. The gap is the side table. The only one offered in black is the Liverpool Pine End Table - Black at 55 x 55 x 58cm. If everything else in the room is Richmond, this is the one piece that has to come from the other range, and at 55cm square in the same dark finish nobody will ever notice. A black TV unit is also the easiest black purchase to justify. A television is a black rectangle whether you like it or not, and a dark cabinet underneath absorbs it into one shape instead of framing it in pale timber. That is the argument for black even in a room where nothing else is dark. Richmond Pine 2 Drawer TV Unit - Black Where the Two Ranges Line Up, and Where They Do Not If you are buying black from both ranges, and most people who do a whole level end up doing exactly that, there are two numbers to check. The good news is at low level: both coffee tables are 45cm high, and the TV units are within a centimetre of each other in both height and depth. Put them in the same room and nothing looks off. The tall pieces are where the two ranges disagree. The Liverpool sideboard is 76cm high and the Richmond is 65cm, an 11cm gap that is very visible if the two share a wall. The consoles are 76cm and 82.5cm, 6.5cm apart. Neither is wrong, but they were not designed to stand next to each other. The workable rule is one range per sight line. Richmond for the dining end, Liverpool for the living end, or the reverse, and let the doorway or the change of room do the work. Mixing them within a single wall is the only way to make black furniture look accidental, which given how deliberate the finish is would be a shame. Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Black What Never Comes in Black Six of the eight ranges have no black version of anything. There is no black acacia, because the two acacia ranges exist to show the timber and a dark finish would defeat the point. There is no black French Provincial, no black Hamptons bedroom, and no black version of the bed frames that carry drawers in the footboard. That last one is the exclusion worth planning around. If you want under bed storage and you want black, those two requirements do not meet in this catalogue, and the answer is a black bed plus a black chest rather than a black bed with drawers in it. What you get in return for the narrow range is consistency. Every black piece here came from one of two ranges built to the same depth grid, so anything you buy in black will physically agree with anything else you buy in black. The full black range is small enough to see in one screen, which is the fastest way to check whether the piece you want is in it. Frequently Asked Questions Which Cedora ranges come in black? Two of the eight. Liverpool accounts for 20 of the 33 black pieces and Richmond for 13. Byron, Oxford, London, Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle have no black version of anything, so black and acacia never appear on the same piece. Can you furnish a whole bedroom in black? Yes, and it comes entirely from Liverpool: three bed sizes, a bedside table, a six drawer chest, a five drawer tallboy and a mirror. That is a complete bedroom, and it is the only range that offers one in a dark finish. Do the two black ranges match each other? At low level, yes. Both coffee tables are 45cm high and the TV units are within a centimetre of each other in height and depth. Higher up they diverge: the sideboards are 11cm apart and the consoles 6.5cm, which is visible when they share a wall. Is there a black side table? One, from Liverpool, at 55 x 55 x 58cm. If the rest of your living room is black Richmond, the side table is the piece that has to come from the other range, and at that size and height the difference does not read. Does black furniture work in a small room? It works best as a single anchor rather than a full scheme. One black piece against a light wall gives a small room a focal point. A whole small room in black loses the sense of where the walls are, which is the opposite of what a small room needs. 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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.
A dining set sounds like a product and it is not. It is the same table and the same chairs sold on one page instead of three, which makes it the rare furniture decision where you can check the maker's claim yourself in about ninety seconds. Worth doing, because the answer is not the same on every bundle. Here is what a set contains, what it typically saves, and how to work out whether the one you are looking at is the cheaper way to buy. Key Takeaways A set is the same table and chairs bundled, not a different product. Bundles typically come in below the separate prices, sometimes by a couple of hundred dollars. Chairs bought on their own come in pairs, so six chairs means three chair sets. Richmond is the only range with bundles that include a bench. Check the arithmetic on your exact combination before ordering, because the gap varies. What Is Actually in a Cedora Dining Set The Dining Sets collection holds fifteen bundles across three ranges: Richmond, Byron and Liverpool. Oxford sells bundles too, listed within its own range rather than in that collection, so it is worth checking there as well if Oxford is your starting point. Each bundle is a table plus a stated number of chairs. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 190cm with 6 chairs - Natural is precisely that, and the table inside it is the same W1900 x D900 x H760 (mm) piece sold on its own page. Nothing about the furniture changes when it is bundled. Two Richmond bundles do something different, pairing four chairs with a bench instead of six chairs. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm with 4 chairs & Bench 208cm - Natural seats eight with half the seating tucking away under the table when it is not in use. No other range offers that, because no other range makes a bench. The Saving, and How to Check It Yourself The method takes a minute. Open the table's own page and note the price. Open the chair page and note the price of a set of two. Multiply that by the number of pairs you need. Add them. Compare to the bundle. On the bundles that discount hardest, the gap is real money. Byron's larger settings come in a couple of hundred dollars under the separate total, and the Richmond bundles land consistently in the same territory. On a purchase of two to three thousand dollars, that is a delivery fee or a rug. The gap is not identical across every combination, though, which is exactly why the check is worth doing rather than assuming. Some pairings sit much closer together than others. If the bundle is cheaper, take it. If your particular combination comes out level, then the decision moves to the things a bundle does regardless of price, which are the next section. What you are comparing How to work it out Table on its own Price from the table's own product page Chairs for six Chair set of 2, multiplied by three Chairs for eight Chair set of 2, multiplied by four Bench bundle Table, plus two chair sets, plus the bench The bundle Single price on the set's own page [products-of-collection collection="dining-sets" heading="Cedora Dining Sets" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-sets-1"] Chairs Come in Twos, Which Makes the Maths Odd Every Cedora dining chair is sold as a set of two. The Richmond Pine Dining Chair Set of 2 - Natural, the Byron Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2 and the Liverpool Pine Dining Chair Set of 2 - Natural all work that way, which is why a six seat room means three purchases rather than six. Selling in pairs is genuinely sensible for a dining room, because seating grows in twos. It does mean that if you want an odd number, or five chairs and a stool, the bundle logic stops helping and you are better off buying pieces individually. It also creates the most common overspend in this category. If you already own four chairs you like, do not buy a bundle to get the table. Buy the table. A bundle that includes six chairs you will store in the garage is not a saving under any arithmetic. Byron Acacia Dining Table 240cm with 8 Chairs The Bench Bundles Are the Ones Worth a Look If your dining room is tight, the two Richmond bench bundles do something no discount can. Four chairs down one side, a bench down the other, and the bench sits 30cm below the tabletop so it slides completely underneath between meals. That returns floor space every day rather than saving money once. In a room where the table sits in the path between the kitchen and the living area, having half the seating disappear is worth more than the difference between a bundle price and a separate one. It also seats more people than the chair count suggests. The 208cm bench takes up to four across, so the 240cm bundle with four chairs and a bench handles eight comfortably and squeezes a ninth when somebody arrives unannounced, which four separate chairs cannot do. Richmond Pine Dining Bench 208cm - Natural When Buying Separately Is the Better Plan Three situations, and none of them are about price. The first is mixing finishes. If you want a black table with natural chairs, or a Byron table with Oxford storage, no bundle will do it and buying separately costs you nothing but the bundle discount. The second is staging the purchase. A table and four chairs now, two more chairs next year when the household grows, is a perfectly sensible plan and one the pair-based chair pricing supports well. Bundles ask you to commit to the final seat count on day one. The third is chair preference. The chairs in a bundle are that range's chairs, and the ranges differ more than people expect: Richmond's stand 88cm tall, Liverpool's 83cm. If you sit in both and prefer the other one, buy the table you want and the chairs you want, and treat the lost discount as the price of not regretting it every dinner. How to Choose the Right Bundle Start from the table, not the bundle. Measure the room, decide whether you need 160cm, 190cm or 240cm, and only then look at what is bundled with that table. Choosing a set because the deal looks good is how people end up with a 240cm table in a room that wanted 190cm. Then decide the seating honestly. Count the people who eat there on an ordinary Tuesday, not at Christmas. If that number is four and you host twice a year, a four chair bundle plus two chairs added later beats an eight chair bundle you are storing. And do the arithmetic before you press buy. It takes a minute, it is the only way to know what your particular combination saves, and it is the difference between assuming you got a deal and knowing you did. [products-of-collection collection="dining-chairs" heading="Chairs, Sold in Pairs" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-sets-2"] Frequently Asked Questions Is a dining set cheaper than buying the pieces separately? Usually, and on the bundles that discount hardest it is by a meaningful margin. It is not automatic though, so do the arithmetic on the exact combination you want: table price plus the chair sets, against the bundle price on the same page. How many chairs come in a Cedora dining set? It depends on the bundle. Four, six or eight, and on two Richmond bundles it is four chairs plus a bench. Bought separately, chairs are sold in pairs, so six chairs means three chair sets. Are the pieces in a set different from the ones sold on their own? No. A set is the same table and the same chairs, ordered together. Every dimension is identical, which is why the comparison is purely about price and delivery rather than product. Which ranges sell dining sets? Richmond, Byron, Oxford and Liverpool. Richmond has the most bundles, including the only ones that pair chairs with a bench. Should I buy a set if I already have chairs? No. Buy the table on its own. A set only makes sense when you need the chairs, and paying for six you will not use to save on a bundle is the most common way people overspend in a dining room. Related Posts Matching Dining Table With Chairs: A Pro Guide to Perfect Pairs How Many Chairs for a Dining Table? Australian Size Guide Liverpool or Richmond? The Bench Decides It More Often Than the Table Does Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
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