Recently we’ve been on the subject of round dining tables. Round to oval tables are fairly common, but fining round to round tables has proved to be an informative challenge.
Did you know that solid wood that is cut in a perfect circle rarely stays that way? As the seasons change and moisture levels fluctuate, a solid wood top will contract and expand. Try measuring the diameter of a round table in your house along the grain and then across the grain. You’ll find that the measurements slightly vary!
Thankfully for us (and our clients) there are some creative ways to overcome this unpredictability and make a large radial expanding table.
This table’s simple base makes it one of the favorites we found. It is made of solids and high-quality veneers, which keeps it from expanding and contracting as much.
The Jupe Table was designed first by Robert Jupe, and is one of the most novel designs of the 19th century for an expanding radial table.
This table uses 5 radial leaves to expand from 66″ to 84″ round.
Smith and Watson makes the widest variety of radial tables that we found. Most use a Jupe-like mechanism to expand.
There is nothing nicer than dining with friends at a round table. The German proverb says it best: At a round table, every seat is the head place. Conversation is easy, everyone feels included, and there are many more options and styles than we originally thought!
