Ferris Custom Furniture

Dining tables

A dining table sized to the room, not to the shipping box.

Dining and conference tables built by hand in San Diego, in solid hardwood, with the top and base designed together so the piece stays flat and rigid for decades.

What to think about

  • 24 inches of edge per person.
  • 36 inches of clearance behind every chair.
  • Measure the doorway and the stairs before the table.
  • A top has to be free to move across its width.
  • Decide about leaves before the base is drawn.

A dining table is the piece of furniture a household uses most and replaces least. It is also the one where a standard size is least likely to suit, because the constraint is not the table, it is the walk-around space in the room it has to live in.

Start with the room, then the seats

Two measurements set almost everything. Each person needs roughly 24 inches of table edge to eat without knocking elbows, and every chair needs about 36 inches behind it to be pulled out and sat in. Subtract the second from the room and the first tells you how many people you can genuinely seat, which is often one or two fewer than people hope.

Shape follows from there. A round table seats more people in less floor area and makes conversation easier, but stops working much beyond 60 inches across because the middle becomes unreachable. A rectangular table suits a long room and extends more gracefully. Long tables need their base worked out carefully so nobody ends up sitting on a leg.

Why the top and the base are one problem

A solid wood top is not a static object. It takes on moisture in humid weather and gives it back in dry weather, and nearly all of that movement happens across the width of the boards rather than along their length. A 40 inch top can change measurably between February and August.

A table that lasts is built to allow for that: the top is fastened to the base in a way that holds it flat while still letting it expand and contract. Tops that crack are almost always tops that were fixed rigidly to a frame that would not move with them. This is the single biggest difference between a table built by someone who understands wood and one that was assembled.

Bases

Four legs and an apron is the traditional answer and the most rigid. A trestle or pedestal frees up the legroom and moves the engineering into the centre. A half-lapped or interlocking base, where the members are notched into each other rather than simply butted, resists racking because it puts long grain against long grain across a wide glue face. The choice is partly aesthetic and entirely structural.

Conference tables

The same thinking scales up for offices, with two additions: power and data have to be routed through the top or the base, and the whole thing usually has to come apart to get into the building. Both are design decisions, not afterthoughts, so bring the floor plan and the lift dimensions to the first conversation.

Recent work

Common questions

What size table do I need?
Allow about 24 inches of table edge per person and at least 36 inches between the table and the wall so chairs can pull out. As a rough guide, a 72 inch table seats six comfortably, 96 inches seats eight, and anything over 108 inches wants a base designed so nobody is straddling a leg.
Round or rectangular?
Round tables seat more people in less floor area and are better for conversation, but they stop scaling past about 60 inches because nobody can reach the middle. Rectangular tables suit long rooms and are easier to extend. The room usually decides before you do.
Will the top crack?
Not if it is built to move. Solid wood expands and contracts across its width through the year, so a well-made top is fastened to its base in a way that lets it do that. Tops that split are almost always tops that were screwed down solid.
Can it extend?
Leaves are possible and they change the design of the base substantially, so raise it at the first conversation rather than later. A table built to extend is a different piece of engineering from one that is not.
What finish survives a family?
The right question is not which finish never marks, because none of them do. It is which finish can be repaired in place without refinishing the whole top. That is worth discussing against how the table will actually be used.

Start with the room.

Tell Bryan what you need and where it is going. Photographs of the space, a sketch on the back of an envelope, or a picture of something you saw once — all of it helps.

Request a quote

Or reach Bryan directly:
(760) 855-7701 bryan@ferriscustomfurniture.com