What Size Bench Fits Under Your Dining Table? A Sussex Maker's Guide (in cm)
If you want your bench to slide fully under your table, order it 20cm shorter than the table length. A 160cm table takes a 140cm bench. A 180cm table takes a 160cm one.
There is one exception, and it's a good one: on our spider frame tables, the legs sit centrally rather than at the ends, so a bench the full length of the table tucks straight underneath.
That's the answer. The rest of this explains why it's 20cm and not the ten different numbers you'll have found elsewhere — and how to work it out if your table came from somewhere other than our workshop.
The short answer: table length minus 20cm
This holds for our X-frame, A-frame, trapeze and hairpin tables. All four put the legs near the ends of the top, and 20cm is the gap that lets the bench pass between them cleanly rather than catching on the way in.
| Your table | Bench that slides under |
|---|---|
| 90cm | 70cm |
| 100cm | 80cm |
| 110cm | 90cm |
| 120cm | 100cm |
| 130cm | 110cm |
| 140cm | 120cm |
| 150cm | 130cm |
| 160cm | 140cm |
| 170cm | 150cm |
| 180cm | 160cm |
| 190cm | 170cm |
| 200cm | 180cm |
If you think in metres or millimetres — and plenty of people do, we get messages quoting 1.8m and 1600 x 880 in the same week — it's the same sum. 1.8m table, 1.6m bench. 1800mm table, 1600mm bench.
The exception: spider frame tables take a full-length bench
The spider frame is the one design in our range where the legs don't sit at the corners. They gather centrally underneath, which leaves both ends of the table completely clear. Nothing is in the way, so the bench doesn't need to be shorter to get past anything.
A 160cm spider frame table takes a 160cm bench. All of it goes underneath.
It's worth understanding what that actually buys you, because it isn't a cosmetic difference. On a 160cm table you gain 20cm of usable bench — enough that people sit comfortably rather than shoulder to shoulder. You're getting more seating out of the same floor space, which matters most in exactly the rooms where floor space is the problem.
Our spider frame tables start at £425 against £330 for the X-frame, A-frame and trapeze. If the extra seating is the reason you're considering it, that's a sound reason. If it isn't, the £330 tables are the same top, the same pine, the same finish.
One practical limit, stated plainly: our standard benches run from 70cm to 200cm. So on a 190cm or 200cm spider frame table the option to order a bench that finishes flush with your table top is available for you. 
A note on our benches: they come with X-frame, trapeze, A-frame or hairpin legs. There's no spider frame bench — the exception above is about your table's legs, not the bench's. Whichever bench style you choose, it's the table underneath that decides the length.
Why every guide you've read gives a different answer
If you've spent an evening searching this, you'll have found advice ranging from "the same length as your table" to "56cm shorter", with roughly eight positions in between. That's not carelessness. It's a symptom of the question being answered by people who don't know your table.
Here's the thing almost every guide now gets right: it isn't the length of the tabletop that constrains the bench. It's the distance between the legs. The top usually overhangs the frame, sometimes generously. What your bench has to fit through is the gap between the legs, not the shadow of the top.
Once you know that, the disagreement makes sense. A table with chunky corner legs and a wide overhang might need a bench 40cm shorter. A pedestal table might need nothing off at all. A guide covering every table ever made has to average across all of them, so it produces a range — and a range is not what you need when you're about to spend a few hundred pounds on something built to order.
We can be exact because we're not averaging. We know where the legs sit on our tables, because Richard builds them. On four of our five leg styles, 20cm is the number. On the fifth, it's zero.
That's the whole difference. Not better advice — better information.
Working it out for a table that isn't ours
Plenty of people arrive here with a table they already own and love. The method is straightforward:
- Measure between the legs, at their widest point, at the height the bench seat will sit. Not the tabletop — the legs. That figure is your ceiling.
- Take a few centimetres off — around 5cm is the usual allowance — so the bench slides in rather than scraping. You want to push it home without aiming.
- Check the height. Measure from the floor to the underside of the tabletop, or to the underside of any apron or rail beneath it. Your bench seat has to clear that.
- Check the depth. Our benches are 37cm deep, which sits comfortably within the overhang on most tables. If yours has a narrow top, measure how far it projects past the frame.
If your table has an apron — a rail running under the top between the legs — that's usually the thing that stops a bench, not the legs. Measure to the bottom of it.
The 30cm you can't see
The measurement nobody asks about until they're sitting down is the gap between the bench seat and the underside of the table. Too little and your thighs catch every time you get up.
Our tables are 74cm high. Our bench seats are 44cm. That leaves 30cm of clear legroom.
Published guidance across the industry puts comfortable clearance somewhere between 25cm and 30cm, and several guides advise aiming for 30cm where you can. We're at the top of that range rather than the bottom, and it's deliberate: it's the difference between sliding along a bench easily and shuffling.
That 30cm is a number you can check yourself with a tape measure before you order. We'd rather you did.
You'll see other makers quoting a 45cm seat with a 76cm table, which lands in the same place. The absolute figures matter less than the gap between them, so if you're comparing us with someone else, compare the difference rather than the seat height.
How many people actually fit
Most sizing guides work this out arithmetically — allow so many centimetres per person, divide, done. We'd rather tell you what our customers actually report.
For six people: a 140–160cm table, 88cm wide.
The width is doing the work there, not the length. At 88cm there's room to seat someone at each end, so you're not limited to the two long sides. Drop to our 66cm width and end seating stops being realistic — the same 140cm table then seats four.
Benches also seat more closely than chairs do. Without fixed chair positions, people naturally settle where there's room, and a family sits tighter than six separate seats allow. A bench-seated table takes more people than a chair-seated table of the same length. That's a pattern we see in real orders rather than a calculation.
For four people: under 140cm, and a narrower width is fine depending on the room.
If nothing seems to fit your kitchen: the 66cm width is worth a proper look. It's narrower than the 90–100cm most retailers treat as standard, and it goes into galley kitchens and narrow kitchen-diners where a conventional table simply won't. The honest trade-off is central space — there's limited room down the middle for sharing platters, a big centrepiece or candles, and as above, end seating is tight. It solves a real problem and it costs you something. Worth knowing which before you order rather than after.
A few honest notes before you order
Our wider top is 88cm, not 90cm. You'll see 90cm quoted almost everywhere else, and people often round ours up when they write to us. It's 88cm. If you're measuring a tight alcove, use the real number.
Waxed pine marks. It's a softwood with a wax finish, and it will pick up marks — that's a property of the material, not a fault. The upside is that wax is repairable in a way lacquer isn't: minor marks disappear with a re-wax you can do yourself at the kitchen table. We'd rather tell you now than have you discover it in month two.
Parts may arrive separately. Your complete order arrives within 10–14 days, but the steel legs and any homeware come from different suppliers on their own timelines, so pieces can turn up across more than one delivery inside that window. Keep the legs somewhere safe when they land.
Bench depth is 37cm. Not a number people think to ask about, but if you're measuring an alcove or a run against a wall, it's the one you'll need.
So, which bench?
If your table is ours and it's an X-frame, A-frame, trapeze or hairpin: take 20cm off the table length. If it's a spider frame: match the table length exactly.
You can see the whole range on our bench collection — hairpin from £125, X-frame from £195, A-frame and trapeze from £200 — and the tables they pair with on our dining table collection.
If you're still deciding on colour, a single sample is £1 and the full pack is £6, both including postage. Screens are unreliable for wax shades, and a sample in your own kitchen light settles it in a way photographs can't.
And if your table is an odd size, or you've measured your leg span and the numbers don't land neatly, just ask us. We build these to order, so an unusual measurement is a conversation rather than a problem.
— Richard & Holly
South Downs Creations, Sussex