Venice Dining Table: 1.2m or 1.5m, and the room each one needs

The Venice Dining Table is one design offered with two ceramic top sizes, so the choice you are making is mostly about your room rather than about the table. The listing gives the tops as 150 x 90 x 75cm and 120 x 80 x 75cm, standing on black legs, and describes the ceramic surface as resisting stains and heat and easy to keep clean. This is a piece the shop supplies rather than one it builds, and nothing in the listing mentions an extension mechanism, so plan around the size you order.

The two sizes, exactly as listed

The figures are quoted above exactly as the listing gives them, and the listing does not label which is which. The product name confirms the 120 and the 150 are the lengths, but nothing states whether the 80cm and 90cm or the 75cm is the depth. The room arithmetic below reads the 80cm and 90cm as the depth and the 75cm as the height, which is the usual arrangement for a dining table rather than something this listing says, so confirm it with the shop before you plan a room around it. Two more points are worth raising before you order. The Kasi Gold top appears in the size list only against the 120cm top, so ask the shop directly if you want gold at 1.5m. And the listing does not say whether Chanel and Kasi Gold describe a colour, a pattern or both, so ask for photographs of the actual top rather than going on the name.

Places set, and the floor space each size wants

Allow roughly 60cm of table edge per person and the arithmetic is straightforward. The 120 x 80cm top sets four comfortably, two along each long side; you can add a chair at each end, but at 80cm across those two diners sit close to the people beside them. The 150 x 90cm top sets six if you take the long sides at three apiece, though that is nearer 50cm each and tight against the 60cm guide, or four with real elbow room, and the extra 10cm of width is what you notice when serving dishes down the middle.

Then add clear floor for chairs to pull out and for someone to walk behind a seated guest. Allow about 90cm on every side you use.

• 120 x 80cm with access all round: about 300 x 260cm of clear floor.
• 150 x 90cm with access all round: about 330 x 270cm.
• Either size pushed against a wall on one long side: take 90cm off the second figure.

Measure the clear floor, not the room. A radiator, a kitchen island overhang and a door that swings inwards all come off the usable figure before the table does.

What the listing does not tell you

Being straight about the gaps is more use than filling them in. The listing does not state the thickness or weight of the ceramic top, the material or finish of the legs beyond their colour, how far the legs are set in from the ends, or the boxed dimensions for delivery access. It says the surface resists stains and heat, but gives no rating or figure for either, so read that as the supplier's description rather than a tested limit and keep using a trivet and a mat. Leg inset is the one to ask about if you want a bench to tuck underneath, and weight matters if the table is going upstairs. Chairs are not part of this listing, so price them separately from dining chairs.

What to compare it against

If 1.5m is the right length but you want a different top, the MB White Marble Dining Table (1.5m) is the same length in another material. In a squarer room a round top often works better than a rectangle, which is what the London Round Table (1.3m) is for. If your numbers change with the occasion, look at the London Extending Dining Table instead, and if you already know you need more length than Venice offers, the Siena Dining Table (1.5/1.8m) goes further. The whole range sits in dining tables.

Ordering, delivery and what to check

Check the route in first: the narrowest doorway, the turn at the top of the stairs, the height of the hall. Ask the shop for the boxed size if the route is tight. On arrival, unwrap the top and look along its edges and corners in daylight for chips before you sign anything, and check the legs while it is still unwrapped. Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond.

Settle on the size and the rest follows. If your clear floor takes 330 x 270cm, order the 1.5m top; if it is nearer 300 x 260cm, the 1.2m still leaves you room to walk past a pulled-out chair. Both are on the Venice Dining Table product page, where the top and the size are picked together, and the shop can answer anything the listing leaves open.