My wife and I were looking for a dining table that fit this style-farmhouse trestle, natural wood, distressed ect. for a long time. Stores are getting more and more this style as it seems to be popular again, but we found this table met all of our criteria PLUS it was near half the cost of some other stores and to be honest, we like this table best. Criteria for us was the following:
Style- farmhouse trestle, old reclaim, natural wood
Size- 42" wide-you have 15" width on each side for comfortable plate setting which leaves a nice 12" spacing in center of table for either your table decor and/or serving food. also the 42" we felt was just enough width to accommodate everything, but not feel too wide where you feel distant from the person across from you. Length-we decided on the 8' length for our growing family and also like to entertain guest, we can seat 10 comfortably. We also went back and forth on tables with leafs and ones without-Dad decided NO leaf as I did not want to store the leaf, or have my wife ask me to set-up the table for the leaf with table where the leaf is stored under table-sounds maybe lazy but our room could easily fit a 8' table and it is plenty big and looks impressive in the room.
Finish- We love the natural unfinished wood looks, but after speaking with some friends who owned them, they overall did not like them for practical reasons of stains, cups rings, ect. they would prefer at least a coat of varnish. This has stain and varnish and is well protected. the varnish seems more flat to matte, not shiny gloss like a lot of wood tables we saw, that starts to make them look fake. I will say though be ready to take out your vacuum to clean the table as this table has cracks and the joints where the planks of wood come together will catch food and you'll have to vacuum them out. Not a big deal to us, but maybe for some who like to just wipe the table clean. Also, since we have small kids-the finish is already dented and beat up looking so no worries for Dad about ruining the new furniture-more dents just adds more character.
Other notes: The table arrived extremely well packaged, I couldn't believe how well it was protected. It was extremely easy to put together-Dad did it himself, but is easier to use two people at the point of setting the table onto the legs.Probably took more time to unwrap the table from packaging than to put together. Also remember there are screws on the bottom of the table feet to help level the table if your floor is a bit uneven-it will take any rocking out of the table-not sure directions tell you that they exist. The pictures online of the table I think were pretty great-it was exactly what we expected the table to look like. it is solid wood-Pine, pretty heavy and solid. We purchased Signal Hills Benchwright Nailhead Upholstered Dining Side Chairs (4) and Unfinished Solid Parawood Java Dining Chairs (4) to have 8 chairs total for the table. We purchased the solid wood chairs because we have several little ones still in booster seats we put on these chairs instead of the upholstered chairs. We stained and varnished the wood to a color close to the table and other upholstered chairs. They all match pretty well. Signal Hills upholstered chairs are nice, but they are on the cheaper side, but they are also a great price when on sale so can't complain.
We love the table and know we get great compliment from others.
