Four times in the last month, I have confronted dining tables vexed by the proportions of their dining rooms.  In each case, the space was transformed by turning the table on an angle.  Usually, symmetry would be the ruling factor—dining table in the middle of the room with sideboards, hutches, and extra chairs radiating along the walls creating a fortress of furniture solitude.   If your dining room was built around the proportions of your table, bully for you!  Otherwise, consider these cosy turns of event…

Table 1 was very formal, mahogany, and antique.  It was sandwiched perpendicular between a wide floor-to-ceiling hutch and a heavily carved antique sideboard.  There was a four-foot walking space on the window side of the table and eight-feet on the primary traffic side.  The dining table was not fully extended to save space, and the extra chairs were set along the walls.  Rather than appearing formally arranged, the dining table appeared formally stored.  So, I turned it, and voila, at approximately a 70-degree angle, the table was free from the rigid bookends.  Next we fully extended the table and pulled in the extra chairs.  We also moved the sideboard to the wall across the wide traffic path, giving the head of the table “breathing room”.  No longer on display like a museum piece, the table is inviting for casual dinners and appealing for secondary uses, such as a study table. 

Table 2 was more casual and early American.  It was set in a large square room off the stair hall in a new cape-styled house.   A large rectangular Chinese carpet filled the centre of the room, leaving two strips of bare floor.  A small oval table, devoid of its leaves and set for four, was centred on the rug under a pewter chandelier.  Beyond one end of the table set a hutch.  Along a small wall between the door to the hall and the door to the kitchen, set a small side table.  Tucked in the far corner was a grandfather clock.  Although the room was spacious, it seemed crowded because the furniture was being constrained by myths of symmetry.  Centring the carpet and table to accommodate the chandelier had created an uncomfortable island effect.  The hutch anchored the “island”.  Metaphors aside, the room was rigid, so I pushed the carpet to the far wall, cosily filling 4/5ths of the room.  The exposed floor now acts as an obvious walkway on one side of the room, connecting the two doors. The table leaf was restored and the four chairs were placed on the sides, leaving the ends for future antiques.  Of course, the table was turned to point to the rug’s corners.  Now the table casually “floats” on the carpet rather than stolidly conforming to the rigid rectangle. The hutch was moved off the carpet to the small wall between the doors.  Snugly placed, the hutch looms with authority on the bare floor, counterbalancing the rest of the room.  As for the central chandelier, the chain was lengthened so it could be hooked over the table. 

Tables 3 and 4 were custom-built harvest tables for a cottage and a beach house.  They were ordered from Joy of Antiques last fall (check out their new location near the Petite Riviere bridge—weekends only).  The harvest tables arrived to large open rooms with views of beaches, cliffs, and sea.   Every seat has a view down the length of the table because I turned, turned, turned.