The greatest barrier to placing a table in your kitchen is room. The kitchen is a functional space that has to be used for meal preparation. However cooking can take up a lot of room, and the more elaborate the dish, or the more people you are cooking for, the more complicated the process. For this reason, a table is not appropriate for every kitchen arrangement.
However if you are clever and creative, you may find that there are a variety of tricks that can be used to fit larger pieces into smaller spaces. These tricks include using angles, understanding size and shape correlations, and working with alternatives to achieve your desired goals.
The first thing you should do is look at the angles of the room. In general a round table will take up less space than a square one, simply because the rough piece won’t have any corners. However, if your kitchen has a nook or a corner where a table can be slid, then a square piece may actually be more beneficial and room efficient. You can but one of the corners up into the angle, and leave two of the others trailing the two converging walls, with only the last corner still jutting out into the room. This table can then be pulled out away from the wall when you are done cooking, and want people to be able to come and sit around and enjoy the meal.
There are also a variety of smaller side pieces that can be used to fulfill the role of a kitchen table, without taking up quite as much space. Bistro tables are one option. Generally sized smaller than standard kitchen tables, bistro pieces are much easier to slide into an unused corner of the space.
Another option is to use a lunch counter, or bar set up, attached to a random wall in the space. These will only just out into the room a little bit, and can actually be used to double as counter space when the chef needs a little extra room to work with.
Jim Slate is an author, artist and designer, who wrote this article on behalf of PebbleZ.com’s line of attractive kitchen tables. These pieces are hand made in the United States, and assembled using a variety of mosaic cut natural stone pieces. The line includes over 40 models to choose from, each available in a variety of large and small sizes, and various shapes.
