Wood Dining Tables: Buying Guide

Every wood dining table in this collection starts as solid hardwood and stays that way from surface to core. Each piece is a solid wood top on a joined base, built to carry seating for a full table, joined by hand and finished to bring out the wood’s natural warmth, so it wears in over the years instead of wearing out.

How to choose the right wood dining table

Seats follow length

A 60 inch table seats six without elbows touching. At 72 inches you host six with room to spare or eight at a squeeze, and a 96 inch top handles eight to ten. Buy for the dinners you actually hold, not the one holiday a year.

The 36 inch clearance rule

Leave at least 36 inches between the table edge and the nearest wall, so a chair can slide back and a person can walk behind it. Measure the room first and let that number cap the table size.

Round tables for tighter rooms

A round top on a pedestal base seats more people per square foot, because there are no legs at the corners and no corners at all. It also keeps conversation even, since nobody sits at the head.

Styles in this collection

The designs run from rectangular to round and with extension leaf pieces, all cut from the same solid stock. If you are building the whole room around wood, the same grain and construction run through our wood wine racks and wood bar cabinets, so the space can carry one idea from wall to wall.

What solid wood gives you that veneer cannot

A veneer piece is a photograph of wood glued over particle board. It looks right for a year or two, then an edge lifts and there is nothing underneath worth repairing. Solid wood is the same material at the surface and at the core:

• Scratches and rings sand or buff out, because the grain continues below the surface.
• Joinery is cut into the wood itself, so the structure tightens with care instead of loosening with age.
• The piece can be refinished decades from now and come back looking new.

Why buy from Burl

Every piece is made to order and built by hand, with free protected delivery and tracking emailed the moment it ships. Delivery is free worldwide, and tracking is emailed the moment your piece ships. You get 30 days to live with the piece and return it in full if it does not sit right, and the structure carries a 10 year warranty. No veneer, no MDF, no particle board.