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Suede furniture has a quiet elegance to it - the kind that makes a room feel considered and lived-in. But it asks for a little more care than most materials, and the wrong approach can cause more damage than the original stain. This guide walks you through how to clean suede furniture at home without compromising the texture, colour, or softness.

The wrong furniture can make even a well-proportioned living room feel like it's closing in. A sofa that's too deep, a cabinet that's too dark, a layout that pushes everything to the walls - these are the choices that eat up space before you've even noticed. This guide walks you through what to choose, what to skip, and how to arrange it all - so your room feels open, comfortable, and genuinely easy to live in.

Small space doesn't mean small style. Whether you're in a studio apartment or a compact home that never quite has enough room - the challenge isn't the size. It's knowing what to do with it. This guide cuts straight to the design thinking that works in real homes: layout, light, proportion, and the furniture choices that make a room feel twice its size. No jargon. Just clear, considered advice you can use today.

Choosing the right dining chair is about more than looks. It's about fit, comfort, and how your dining space actually works for you morning coffee, weeknight dinners, long lunches with friends. This guide walks you through the decisions that matter most size, comfort, materials, and style so you can shop with clarity and confidence.

Learn how to choose a desk that fits your room, work style, and budget. Follow our expert tips on size, ergonomics, and material to upgrade your setup.

Outdoor furniture ideas should do more than look good. They should fit your space, match how you live, and hold up to the weather. This guide helps you plan layouts, choose materials, and find a style that turns your patio, balcony, porch, or backyard into a true outdoor living space.

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.

Acacia is solid timber, so tone and grain vary between pieces and batches. Why two Cedora acacia pieces differ, and how to order so they sit close.

Acacia is the timber people ask about most and understand least. It turns up in the same sentence as oak and teak, it costs a fraction of either, and the usual explanation stops at "durable hardwood" without ever answering the question a buyer actually has, which is what it will look like in their house in five years. Cedora uses it in thirty-one pieces across three ranges. On twenty-three of them the acacia is what you see and touch. On the other eight it is inside the furniture, painted over, and you would never know it was there. Those are two genuinely different purchases, and it is worth knowing which one you are making. Key Takeaways Thirty-one acacia pieces: Byron twelve, Oxford eleven, Newcastle eight. Byron and Oxford show the timber. Newcastle paints over it. Every acacia top is solid. Sideboards and TV units carry an MDF back panel. Byron paints everything but the tops. Oxford carries timber onto door fronts too. Cedora's own Acacia Furniture collection excludes Newcastle, for exactly that reason. Why a Furniture Maker Reaches for Acacia Acacia is dense, it is farmed rather than slow-grown, and it arrives with a grain that is anything but uniform. Boards vary from pale honey to a warmer caramel, often across the same tabletop, and the figure runs in short interlocked passages rather than the long straight lines of oak. It is the opposite of a calm timber. That variability is the whole point commercially. A busy grain forgives, which matters more in a family home than any hardness rating printed on a spec sheet. A cup ring, a fork scrape, the mark a hot plate leaves through a thin tea towel: on a flat pale surface each of those events is an incident, and on acacia most of them simply disappear into the pattern within a week or two. The trade is that you cannot control the look. Two Oxford tables from the same production run will not match board for board, and if you are the sort of person who wants furniture to arrive exactly as photographed, that will bother you. If you would rather your dining table look lived in on purpose than worn out by accident, it is the right timber. Byron: Acacia on Top, White Everywhere Else The twelve Byron pieces follow one rule. The top is solid acacia, everything holding it up is painted white. The Byron Acacia Dining Table 190cm at W1900 x D900 x H760 (mm) is the clearest example: a warm timber plane floating on a frame that visually disappears against a pale wall. It is a deliberate piece of restraint. In a room with a lot of natural light, which describes most Australian living areas facing a garden or a deck, a full timber setting can read heavy by mid-afternoon. Splitting the piece into a timber surface and a white structure keeps the warmth at eye level, where you sit and eat, and takes the weight out of everything below the table line. The same logic runs through the Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard at W1600 x D450 x H860 (mm) and the Byron Acacia Coffee Table. White carcass, timber top, and an MDF back panel on the sideboard and TV unit that sits against the wall where nothing touches it. Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard Byron Acacia 3 Door 3 Drawer Sideboard Oxford: the Timber Goes Further Oxford runs the same combination but does not stop at the top. On the Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard, W180 x D45 x H85cm, the acacia carries down onto the door fronts, so the timber occupies most of the piece and the white becomes a frame around it. Stand the two sideboards side by side and Byron reads as painted furniture with a timber top, Oxford as timber furniture in a painted case. Oxford also runs larger. The sideboard and the Oxford Acacia TV Unit are both 180cm wide against Byron's 160cm, and the Oxford Acacia Console Table stretches to W150 x D36 x H76cm, which is unusually long and unusually shallow. Thirty-six centimetres is narrow enough for a hallway people still have to walk down. The dining tables are the 190cm at W190 x D90 x H76cm and the 240cm at W240 x D100 x H76cm, seating six and eight. Chairs come in pairs as the Oxford Acacia Dining Chair Set of 2, W46.8 x D55 x H88.7cm, with an upholstered seat on a white timber frame. Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard Oxford Acacia 4 Door 1 Drawer Sideboard [products-of-collection collection="acacia-furniture" heading="Acacia Furniture at Cedora" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-acacia-1"] Newcastle: the Acacia You Never See The eight Newcastle pieces list acacia too, and this is where a buyer can be caught out. The bed frames are recorded as a solid acacia headboard with a pine and acacia structure, and the case pieces as a pine and acacia structure. Every one of them is painted white, and on the beds the headboard panel is upholstered in fabric on top of that. There is no visible timber anywhere in the range. That is not a problem, but it does change what you are buying. In Byron and Oxford you are paying for acacia as a finish, and the timber is doing the aesthetic work. In Newcastle you are paying for it as a structure, and the aesthetic work is being done by the shape: curved fronts, moulded edges, shaped legs. Judge Newcastle on its silhouette, because that is what you will actually see. Cedora's own Newcastle chest sits in the French Provincial and bedroom collections rather than the Acacia Furniture one, which is the correct call. If you searched the store for acacia and expected Newcastle to appear, that is why it did not. Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest Living With Acacia in an Australian House Three things actually matter, and none of them are complicated. Heat is the first: acacia takes daily use well and takes a hot pan badly, so a mat under anything straight off the stove is the whole of the maintenance routine for most households. Standing water is the second, and the answer is to wipe rather than to leave it, particularly around the join lines where boards meet. Sun is the third and the one people underestimate here. A table parked in unfiltered afternoon light through a west-facing window will lighten unevenly over a couple of summers, and the part shaded by a fruit bowl will stay darker than the rest. Sheer curtains solve it, moving the bowl occasionally solves it, and doing neither means living with a pale rectangle you will notice forever. What you do not need is oil, polish, or a maintenance schedule. These pieces arrive sealed and the finish is not something you top up. A damp cloth and the occasional dry one covers it, and the grain handles the rest by being too busy to hold a grudge. Oxford Acacia Console Table Oxford Acacia Console Table Which Range Suits Which Room If the acacia is the reason you are here, that narrows it to twenty-three pieces and a fairly clean split. Byron suits a room where you want warmth at table height and lightness everywhere else, which is most apartments and most open-plan living areas where the furniture has to share a floor with a sofa. It also runs to a 160cm dining table, the smallest in the group, which matters in a compact space. Oxford suits a room with a wall to fill. The 180cm case pieces and the door-front timber give it more presence, and in a larger dining room or a hallway with a proper run of wall it holds its ground where a lighter piece would look lost. Both ranges cover dining and living. Neither covers a bedroom. Newcastle is the answer only if what you want is the Provincial shape, and the acacia is incidental. Buy it for the curves, the upholstered headboard and the painted finish, and treat the timber inside as what it is: the structure doing its job quietly, where nobody sees it. All three ranges list acacia on the spec sheet, but only the Acacia Furniture pieces are really about the wood. Frequently Asked Questions How many acacia pieces does Cedora make? Thirty-one across three ranges: twelve in Byron, eleven in Oxford and eight in Newcastle. On the twenty-three Byron and Oxford pieces the acacia is the surface you see. On the eight Newcastle pieces it is structural and painted over. Is Cedora's acacia furniture solid timber? The tops are solid acacia. The frames on Byron and Oxford are painted, and the sideboards and TV units in both ranges carry an MDF back panel, which sits against the wall. Every surface you set something down on is solid timber. What is the difference between Byron and Oxford acacia? Mostly where the timber stops. Byron puts acacia on the tops and paints the rest. Oxford carries it further, including onto the sideboard door fronts. Oxford also runs to larger case pieces at 180cm wide against Byron's 160cm. Does acacia furniture mark easily? Less than most pale timbers, because the grain is busy and varied enough to absorb small marks rather than frame them. Heat and standing water are the real risks, so use a mat under anything straight off the stove and wipe spills rather than leaving them. Why is Newcastle not in the Acacia Furniture collection? Because you cannot see the timber. The Acacia Furniture collection groups the pieces where acacia is the visible finish, which is Byron and Oxford. Newcastle's acacia sits inside a painted frame and behind an upholstered headboard. Related Posts What Is Acacia Wood Furniture? Pros, Cons, and Durability Byron Collection Room by Room: Acacia Tops on a White Frame Oak vs Acacia Wood Furniture: Best Dining Table Choice Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.