Console Table & Sideboard Size Guide: How to Measure Your Space

The CharlesTed Buying Guide

A console table or sideboard should look as though it was made for the wall it sits on. Get the size right and a hallway feels calm and considered. Get it wrong and you will be squeezing past it for years.

The pieces that greet you at the front door do a surprising amount of work. They catch keys and post, hold a lamp for dark evenings, and set the tone for every room beyond. Yet they are also the pieces most often bought on looks alone, only to arrive and swallow a narrow hall or look lost on a long wall.

This guide walks you through measuring properly, choosing the right depth, and comparing your space against real pieces from our range, so the one you choose feels like it was always meant to be there.

Measure the wall

Measure the full width of the wall, then note everything that interrupts it: radiators, sockets, light switches, door frames and skirting. The space you can really use is almost always narrower than the wall itself.

Measure the walkway

Measure from the wall to the nearest obstacle opposite, such as the bottom stair, a doorway or the edge of the dining table. This single number decides how deep your piece can be.

Mark it out

Use masking tape on the floor and the wall to mark the width, depth and height of the piece you have in mind. Then live with it for a day. Walk past it with shopping bags, open the front door, come down the stairs in a hurry.

If you find yourself stepping around the tape, go slimmer.

Width is what you notice first, but depth is what you live with. It decides how much walkway you keep and how much you can store, and it is the measurement most people forget to check.

Width. A piece around two thirds of the wall width usually looks balanced, with space either side to let it breathe. Behind a sofa, choose a console that is no longer than the sofa itself.

Height. Most consoles and sideboards sit between 75cm and 90cm high. Behind a sofa, aim for the same height as the sofa back or just below it.

Walkways. In a hallway, try to keep around 90cm of clear space to walk past comfortably. In a dining room, leave a similar gap between the sideboard and the table so chairs can be pulled out.

Doors and drawers. Check there is room to open cupboard doors and pull drawers out fully without meeting a radiator, door frame or chair.

Measurements mean more with something to compare them to. Here are five pieces across the range, from the slimmest hallway console to a full dining room sideboard.

The Edit

Reclaimed and handmade pieces can vary by a centimetre or two. Full dimensions are on every product page.

Solid wood furniture is heavy, and many of our pieces arrive fully assembled. A few minutes with a tape measure now saves a difficult delivery day.

Measure twice, order once, and enjoy it for a lifetime.