What Is a Credenza, and Where It Stops Being a Sideboard

Credenza, sideboard, buffet, server, console. Five words for cabinets that look broadly alike, used interchangeably by most retailers, and argued about online with more confidence than evidence.

There is a useful distinction underneath the noise, and it is not about history or country of origin. It is height. Each of these words describes a cabinet built to work at a particular height, and once you know which height you need, the word stops mattering and the shopping gets easy.

Key Takeaways

• A credenza is a low, long cabinet, roughly 60cm to 75cm high, with doors doing most of the work.
• A sideboard sits higher at about 75cm to 85cm and usually mixes doors with drawers.
• A buffet is taller again at 85cm to 95cm, built to serve from while standing.
• A console is the odd one out: 36cm to 38cm deep, with little real storage.
• In this catalogue the Richmond at 65cm is the credenza, and the Oxford and Byron at 85cm and 86cm are buffets.

The Short Answer

A credenza is a low, long, mostly enclosed cabinet that sits close to the floor, with doors rather than legs dominating its front. The word comes from Italian, where a credenza was the sideboard a servant used to taste food before it reached the table. In modern use it turns up as much in offices, behind a desk, as it does in dining rooms.

What separates it from a sideboard in practice is that a credenza is built to be looked over rather than worked at. It sits below the height of a dining table, so it reads as a horizontal line low on the wall, leaves a large expanse of wall free above it, and is a nuisance to serve from because you have to stoop.

Four Words, Four Heights

Set against a dining table, which is 76cm high in every Cedora range, the differences become concrete.

Depth is what separates the console from the other three. At 36cm to 38cm it cannot hold a stack of dinner plates end on, which is why a console is a surface with a shelf rather than a storage cabinet. The other three are all 40cm to 50cm deep and differ only in how high they hold that storage.

Liverpool Pine 2 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard - Natural

Where the Cedora Cabinets Actually Land

Applying the same measure to the range gives a clear split, and it is more useful than the product names.

So if you searched for a credenza and want the genuine article, the Richmond is it. At 65cm high on a 160cm run it does what a credenza is supposed to do: keeps the storage low, leaves a large clear wall above for art or a mirror, and lets a room breathe in a way that an 86cm cabinet cannot.

If what you actually want is somewhere to put serving dishes down while you carve, you want the opposite end: the Oxford or the Byron at 85cm and 86cm. Serving from a 65cm cabinet means bending over a hot dish, and you will only enjoy it once.

Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard

When a Credenza Is the Right Choice

Under a window. A 65cm cabinet clears most window sills, which sit around 90cm in a typical Australian home. An 86cm buffet does not, and a cabinet jammed under a sill is the most common furniture mistake in a dining room.

Where you want a large piece of art or a mirror. Twenty one centimetres of extra wall between the top of the cabinet and the picture rail changes what you can hang. On a 65cm credenza a 100cm mirror sits comfortably with clearance above and below.

In an open plan room where the cabinet is seen from the lounge. A low horizontal line reads as part of the architecture. A tall one reads as a wall of cupboard.

Behind a desk in a home office. This is the traditional use and it still works: a low cabinet you can reach across from a seated position, with the printer and the files inside.

When to Ignore the Word Entirely

Most of the time, honestly. The words are used loosely across the whole furniture market, and searching by them will show you the same cabinets under three different labels. Two measurements will serve you better than any of the terms:

1. Height, against 76cm. Below it for a low horizontal line and a big wall above. At it for a continuous surface across the room. Above it if you serve from the cabinet.
2. Depth, against your walkway. Forty five centimetres if the wall can spare it, 38cm if it cannot. That 7cm decides whether a chair can still push back past the cabinet.

Everything else, the number of doors, the number of drawers, the finish, is a preference rather than a category. We took the clearance side of that decision apart in dining room storage ideas, and the serving height question in how tall should a sideboard be.

Liverpool Pine 2 Door 2 Drawer Sideboard - Black

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a credenza?

A low, long, mostly enclosed cabinet, usually 60cm to 75cm high and 40cm to 50cm deep, with doors doing most of the storage work. It sits below dining table height, which is what separates it from a sideboard or a buffet.

What is the difference between a credenza and a sideboard?

Height. A credenza sits at 60cm to 75cm, below the 76cm line of a dining table, while a sideboard sits at 75cm to 85cm, level with it or just above. A sideboard also tends to mix drawers with doors where a credenza is doors first.

Is a buffet the same as a credenza?

No. A buffet is the tallest of the three at 85cm to 95cm, built so you can carve, plate and pour standing up. A credenza at 65cm forces you to stoop, which is why it is a poor choice if you actually serve from the cabinet.

Can a credenza be used in a dining room?

Yes, and it works well under a window, because at 65cm it clears the typical 90cm sill that a taller buffet fouls. The trade is that you cannot comfortably serve from it, so it suits households that store in the dining room rather than plate up there.

What height should a credenza be?

Between 60cm and 75cm. Anything at 76cm reads as a sideboard because it lines up with the dining table, and anything at 85cm or above is a buffet.