Torino 1.1m Round Extending Table: what 110 to 150cm gives you

The listing for the Torino 1.1m Round Extending Dining Table is a single line: 110-150 x 110 x 78cm. That is honest but sparse, so rather than dress it up, here is what those four figures actually tell you and what they do not.

Reading the dimensions

Taken in the order given, the first figure is the one that moves: the table closes at 110cm and opens to 150cm. The second, 110cm, stays fixed. The third, 78cm, is the height from the floor to the top surface. So closed it is a 110cm round, and open it is 150cm one way by 110cm the other.

Worth knowing: most tables in the dining tables range are listed at 75cm high. This one is 78cm. Those three centimetres go into the gap under the top, which helps with chairs that have arms, but only if you know what sits beneath the surface. Measure from your floor to the top of your chair arms before you decide.

What it seats, closed and open

A 110cm circle has about 346cm of edge. At roughly 60cm per place that is five, and at a comfortable 85cm each it is four. Four is the number to count on day to day.

Opened, the edge grows. If the extension is added across the middle, the outside measure gains roughly 80cm of edge, which is about one more place and a sixth at a push. The listing does not say what shape the open table takes, so treat that as arithmetic rather than fact and ask the shop to confirm it.

Clear floor at both settings

• Allow about 75cm out from the edge for a chair in use. Closed, that is roughly a 260cm square of clear floor.
• Opened to 150 x 110cm, it is roughly 300 x 260cm.
• Add about 100cm on any side where somebody walks behind a seated diner.

The point people miss with an extending table is that the room has to hold the open size on the days it matters. There is no use in a table that only extends when the sideboard is moved.

What the listing does not tell you

This listing gives dimensions and nothing else, so none of the following is stated, and none of it should be guessed from a photograph: the top material or finish, the base design, the colour, the weight, how the extension mechanism works, whether the leaf stores inside the table or has to be kept elsewhere, and whether it arrives assembled. The leaf question is the practical one, because a leaf you have to store is a leaf that has to live somewhere. Ask the shop, and ask the current lead time at the same time.

What to compare it with

The Lucca 1.1m Round Extending Dining Table is the closest comparison, another 110cm round that extends. If you would rather start rectangular, the Torino 1.2/1.4m Extending Dining Table is the same family in two extending sizes. And for a fixed round top with no mechanism to maintain, the BK-Milan Round Dining Table (1.1/1.3m) is 110cm or 130cm. Chairs are listed separately under dining chairs.

Before you order

Chalk the open size on the floor, not the closed one, and ask the shop about the top, the leaf and the mechanism. Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond. The listing does not describe the finish in words, so the photographs are what you have to go on, and they are on the Torino 1.1m Round Extending Dining Table page.