How to choose the right size of furniture

Pia Seidel

4/5/2024

Translation: Julia Graham

There are lots of ways to visualise how a piece of furniture that you’ve seen on- or offline could look in your home. But in the end, there was only one method that swayed me and helped find my future dining table.

I saw one-legged round dining tables online and fell instantly in love. What should I do now? Take off my rose-tinted glasses and think rationally. Are tables like these really suitable for my room? Are they big enough? And do they match my decor?

There are a number of ways to find your answer:

• Create a mood board: you can browse magazines and furniture catalogues to get an idea of what different round, one-legged dining tables look like in practice. This helps visualise how they work in different environments – just not in mine. It’s unlikely I’ll find a room similar to my own.

• Sketch it out: drawing by hand or using computer programs allow you to visualise the placement and proportions of a piece of furniture in your room. That being said, I don’t find a few brush strokes really bring it to life.

• Make a collage: with the help of image editing programs, online tools or printed photos, and a bit of cutting and pasting, I managed to cobble together a picture of my room and the piece of furniture. This certainly gives me an idea of how the dining table would harmonise with my furnishings. But the whole thing is just two-dimensional.

• Augmented reality (AR): AR apps can place furniture virtually in my room so I can see it in three dimensions. They use my smartphone camera to display the room and then add objects. But is this really helpful for estimating how much space a dining table will take up or how high it’ll be? I’m still unsure and need something more tangible.

• Masking tape: whether you have pictures or not, to get more specific and make sure your furniture fits, it’d be worth taping the floor or wall with the dimensions of your desired dining table. This way you can work out the perfect size. But despite doing that, I still can’t tell whether the chairs will fit.

When it comes down to it, all the tools I’ve mentioned so far don’t give me a sense of space. That’s why I’m relying on another idea: recreating a dining table model in a simple way.

Cutting out

First, I measure a cardboard box and cut it to the desired size. The dining table I have in mind is a one-legged model, so I need a circle as well as a rectangle to later shape into a hollow column.

Colouring it in

I then dye the dark cardboard pieces a lighter colour to make it more in line with my potential piece of furniture. I use a basic acrylic spray left over from another DIY project. Two coats give enough coverage so I can visualise the desired colour.

Glue it together

After the cardboard pieces have dried, I glue them together. The table top section sags a little, so I stabilise it with individual cardboard strips.

Positioning it

To find the best place for it, I move the cardboard dining table about from in front of the window to more in the middle of the room. Then I add the chairs. This is the most important step so far in getting my imagination up to speed. Because now I can sit with my legs crossed and see if they fit under the tabletop. And whether there’s enough space between the chair and the wall for everyone to sit and stand up comfortably.

As hoped, even the cardboard model is in keeping with the rest of the furnishings. So I put my rose-tinted glasses back on and order Bianca from Venture Home – my futurehusbandtable.

You can also apply this trick to other furniture. It just might not be as easy to imitate a geometric shape like this. But you’ll still be able to use it to get a quick overview that can help you decide what to buy. While you’re at it, check whether the wood, stone or metal is a match. I usually order a sample piece from the manufacturer if possible. Or I nip to a DIY shop and look at the materials there.

Pia Seidel

Senior Editor

Pia.Seidel@digitecgalaxus.ch

Like a cheerleader, I love celebrating good design and bringing you closer to everything furniture- and interior design- related. I regularly curate simple yet sophisticated interior ideas, report on trends and interview creative minds about their work.

These articles might also interest you