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Most people shop for a sideboard by width. You measure the wall, subtract a bit for comfort, and start filtering. It is a reasonable way to shop and it is why so many dining rooms end up with a piece that fits the wall perfectly and still feels wrong every time you use it. The number that decides how a sideboard behaves is its height, and across the eight in the Cedora range that number moves 21cm, from 65cm to 86cm. Every Cedora dining table, in all four lines, is 76cm. What follows is what each height band does once there are plates on it. Key Takeaways Cedora sideboards span 65cm to 86cm in height, while every dining table is exactly 76cm. At 85cm to 86cm the Oxford and Byron work as standing serving surfaces. At 76cm the Liverpool sits level with the table, so dishes slide straight across. At 65cm the Richmond reads as a low console and suits a living room wall better. All of them are 45cm or 46cm deep, so plan a 75cm to 90cm walkway on top of that. Every Dining Table Is 76cm. The Sideboards Are Not. Dining tables are one of the few pieces of furniture with a genuinely fixed height. Across the Liverpool, Richmond, Byron and Oxford ranges, every table measures 76cm from floor to top, whether it is a 160cm four seater or a 240cm eight seater. Chairs are built to that number, so nobody varies it. Sideboards have no such rule, and manufacturers use the freedom differently depending on what they think the piece is for. A sideboard designed as a buffet gets built near kitchen bench height. One designed to sit under a window or a run of artwork gets built low. Both get sold under the same word, which is where the confusion starts. So before comparing finishes, work out which of the three jobs you actually need: a surface to serve food from while standing, a surface that extends the table, or a storage box that stays visually below everything else in the room. Each one has a height, and once you know the height the shortlist gets very short. At 85cm and 86cm, You Serve Standing Up The Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard is 180 x 45 x 85cm and the Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard is 160 x 45 x 86cm. An Australian kitchen bench is usually 90cm, so both of these land within about 5cm of the surface you already prepare food on. Your back knows the difference between that and reaching down to 76cm with a hot dish in both hands. That is the case for either of them in a room where the dining table does the entertaining. Christmas lunch, a birthday with too many people, any meal where the table is full and the food has to be somewhere else: a sideboard at bench height turns into a second bench, and you can carve on it without anyone at the table getting an elbow in the ear. The two differ in how they divide the space inside. The Oxford runs four cupboard doors with a single drawer above them, and that drawer is 87.4cm wide but only 17.8cm high, which is a shape almost purpose built for cutlery trays, table linen and serving spoons laid flat. The Byron takes the opposite approach with three drawers over three cupboards, so it holds more small things and fewer long ones. Both are solid acacia with an MDF back panel, and both stand on visible legs rather than a plinth, which keeps a big piece from looking heavy. Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard At 76cm, the Sideboard and the Table Become One Surface The Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural is 180 x 46 x 76cm, and the black version is identical in every dimension. At 76cm it is exactly level with every Cedora dining table, and level does something the other heights cannot: you can slide a dish from one to the other without lifting it. In practice that matters most for the meals nobody photographs. Weeknight dinner where the rice cooker and the salad bowl live on the sideboard because the table is not big enough for both plus homework. Sunday breakfast where the toaster gets carried in. Anything where the two surfaces are working together rather than one serving the other. Inside, three drawers sit between two cupboards, each drawer measuring 53.8 x 36.9 x 21.6cm. That is deep enough for placemats stacked flat, tea towels, candles and the drawer of miscellaneous dining room objects every house has. The frame is solid pine with an oak veneer, the edges are softly rounded rather than square, and the recessed finger pulls mean there is no hardware to catch a hip on in a room where people squeeze past. Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural [products-of-collection collection="sideboards" heading="Shop Cedora Sideboards" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-sideboard-1"] At 65cm, It Stops Being a Serving Piece The Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural is 160 x 45 x 65cm. That is 11cm below the table it would sit next to, and 25cm below a kitchen bench. Anything you serve from it, you serve bent over, which is worth knowing before rather than after. Read it as a low console instead and it becomes the most useful piece in the range. At 65cm it sits below the sight line of anyone standing, so a wall of artwork above it reads as the feature and the furniture reads as the base. It also clears most window sills, which is the one place in an open plan room where a taller cabinet simply cannot go. The structure is a pine carcass on solid oak legs, with two cupboards and three drawers, and there is a black finish in the same dimensions. In an open plan living and dining space, the honest use for it is as the divider between the two zones: storage for both, a surface for neither, and low enough that the room still reads as one space. Richmond Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural Depth Is 45cm, and That Is the Number Small Rooms Fail On Every sideboard here is 45cm or 46cm deep, and the difference between them is not worth thinking about. What is worth thinking about is what sits in front. A dining chair needs roughly 75cm behind the table edge to be pulled out and sat in, and a person walking behind a seated diner wants about 90cm. Put those together and a sideboard on the same wall as the pulled out chairs needs your room to be about 1.4 metres deeper than the table itself. Most Australian dining rooms are not, which is why the sideboard belongs on an end wall or the wall behind the chairs nobody uses, not opposite the kitchen where the traffic runs. When the wall genuinely is not long enough, the Liverpool Pine 2 Door 2 Drawer Sideboard - Natural is the answer at 130 x 46 x 76cm, with a black version to match. It keeps the height and the depth of its larger sibling and drops 50cm of width by giving up one drawer. In an apartment dining nook that is usually the whole difference between a sideboard and no sideboard. Liverpool Pine 2 Door 2 Drawer Sideboard - Black Matching It to a Table You Already Own If the table came from one of these ranges, the matching sideboard is the safe answer and the finishes are made to sit together. But the range is deliberately mixable, and a contrast piece often works harder: a black Liverpool against a natural timber table gives a dining room a visual anchor that a matched set never does. What should not vary is the relationship between the heights. Within about 10cm of the table, in either direction, the two pieces read as belonging together whatever the timber. Push past 15cm and they read as two separate purchases, which is fine if that is the intention and jarring if it is not. So measure the wall last. Decide first whether you are buying a serving surface, a table extension or a low storage base, take the height that matches, and then check it fits. Bought in that order, a sideboard stops being the piece of furniture you walk around and starts being the reason the dining room works at all. The full sideboard range covers all three heights. Frequently Asked Questions How tall should a sideboard be? Between 76cm and 90cm if you want to serve from it standing up, because that is the range your kitchen bench already sits in. Below about 70cm it becomes a low console: still good storage, but you will be bending to reach anything you put on top of it. Can a sideboard be taller than the dining table? Yes, and two of the Cedora sideboards are. The Oxford is 85cm and the Byron 86cm against a table top of 76cm, so they stand about 10cm proud. That reads as deliberate rather than mismatched, and it puts serving dishes above the heads of anyone seated. How deep is a sideboard and how much room does it need? Every Cedora sideboard is 45cm or 46cm deep. Allow that plus a walkway: 75cm of clear floor for people to pass behind seated diners, or 90cm if chairs on that side get pushed back regularly. In a narrow room, put the sideboard on the wall the chairs do not use. What size sideboard suits a small dining room? The 130cm Liverpool. It is the only one under 160cm, it keeps the same 76cm height and 46cm depth as the 180cm version, and it gives up one drawer rather than any usable capacity. In an apartment dining nook that 50cm saving is the difference between fitting and not. Does the sideboard have to match the dining table? It does not, but the height relationship matters more than the timber. A sideboard within 10cm of the table reads as part of the same set even in a different finish, while one that is 20cm lower reads as a separate piece of furniture that happens to be in the room. Related Posts Sideboard vs Buffet: Key Differences and How to Choose What to Store in a Sideboard: Smart Storage Ideas & Tips How to Style a Sideboard: 10 Expert Rules for a Perfect Look Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.