dining room furniture

Three surface heights, three different seats

There are three standard surface heights in a home and each one takes its own seat. A dining table is around thirty inches and takes an eighteen inch seat. A kitchen counter is around thirty six inches and takes a twenty four to twenty six inch counter stool. A bar is around forty two inches and takes a twenty nine or thirty inch bar stool. The gap between counter and bar stools is six inches, they look almost identical in a photograph, and buying the wrong one is the most common ordering error in this entire category.

• Measure the surface, not the stool. Take the height from the floor to the top of the counter before looking at anything.
• Allow ten to twelve inches of leg room. That gap between seat top and surface underside is what makes a seat usable.
• Counter and bar are not interchangeable. Six inches is the difference between eating comfortably and perching.
• Check for arms. Chair arms have to clear the underside of the table, which rules out several combinations before height does.

How many chairs the table can take

Seating capacity is set by table edge rather than by table area. Allow about twenty four inches of edge per person for comfort, and no less than twenty two before elbows start meeting. A compact table that seats four on paper often seats two comfortably and four at a squeeze, and knowing that before ordering is the difference between a table that works and one that gets replaced.

• Twenty four inches per person. Measure the usable perimeter and divide, rather than trusting a stated capacity.
• Corners and legs eat seats. A leg at each corner removes the corner positions entirely.
• Buy chairs in the number that fits. Sets of two and four here make it easy to build up to the number the table actually takes.

The light has a height rule too

The chandeliers on this shelf belong here rather than with the lighting, because their correct position is defined by the table underneath them. Hang a fixture thirty to thirty six inches above the tabletop, measured to the bottom of the fixture. Higher and it stops lighting the table; lower and people sitting opposite each other cannot see past it.

• Thirty to thirty six inches above the top. Measured from the tabletop to the lowest point of the fixture.
• Add three inches per foot of ceiling above eight. A high ceiling wants the fixture proportionally lower than the rule suggests.
• Width is about half the table. A fixture much narrower than that reads as undersized however bright it is.

A shelf built around the seat

Chairs, a stool set, a table and the fixtures above it make up this shelf, which is organized around the seat rather than the surface. Matching the seat to what you already own is the faster route through it.

• Dining height seating. Chair styles from acrylic to spindle and faux leather, in sets of two and four.
• Counter height seating. An industrial bar stool set, which is where the height check above matters most.
• Table and light. A compact faux marble table plus fixtures sized to hang over one; in an open plan space that table sits at the edge of the living room rather than in a room of its own.
• When the table is also a desk. A dining table doing double duty answers to the clearance rules on the home office shelf as well as to these.