The kitchen is among one of the most used rooms in any home and the focus of the kitchen is the kitchen table. A careful selection of your kitchen table can go a long way in enhancing your cooking experience. If you take an inventory of all the uses a kitchen table is likely to have in its lifetime, you will end up with a very long list. For example, you will almost certainly eat at the kitchen table, and you will probably read the morning newspaper, have coffee with friends and family, and your children will color, paint, and do their homework at the table. You will want a versatile and comfortable table considering the breadth of all the activities that take place in this one place.

Tables come in a wide variety of shapes, styles, materials of construction, and quality levels. The selection process should start with the size and shape. Most people have to work within the confines of their current kitchen. However, a lucky few might be lucky enough to plan their kitchen around a prized kitchen table because they are remodeling or building a new home. For the rest of us, the distance between two walls will determine the maximum size of our table. Ideally, you want at least 36 inches between the edge of your table and the walls. This gives your family members and guests plenty of room to comfortably get in and out of your seat. Let’s say you have a three-walled breakfast nook that is ten feet wide by five feet deep. Not counting islands or other obstructions you may have in the rest of the kitchen, the limiting dimension in this case is the ten-foot width of the corner.

So what is the largest table that you can comfortably use in this room? Coming three feet from each wall, you have 48 inches of space left. If you want to keep the table primarily within the breakfast nook, a 48-inch long, 30-inch wide table would work well in this space. This size table can comfortably seat four for most casual meals. You may find this table to be a bit cramped if you are serving a meal that requires multiple plates, bowls, etc.

You have a lot more options if the table reaches the kitchen by a few feet. A 48-inch square table will comfortably seat four adults. A round table with a diameter of 48 inches can easily seat six people. Rectangular tables up to sixty inches long will fit in this space and also seat six.

If you are looking for a new kitchen table, take some careful measurements and be patient in selecting the right table for your home and family.