The piece that will not fit through the door is not a delivery-driver myth. It happens, almost always for the same reason: someone measured the room, not the route into it. Sofa and dining table dimensions, and how to choose them, starts with a tape measure and a floor plan, never with a photograph. Our measurements are printed on every product page (the Cardinal dining table is 190 x 80 x 75 cm, the coffee table 120 x 80 x 30 cm), and this guide explains how to read them before you order, so the piece fits the plan and the life you lead around it.
Start with the door, not the sofa
In France, interior doors come in four nominal widths, 63, 73, 83 and 93 cm, at a standard height of 204 cm, as this joinery guide lays out. The figure refers to the door leaf, not the clear opening: subtract the frame and the thickness of the open door and you lose a few centimeters. If you are reading this from New York or London, your standards differ (a US interior door is commonly 30 or 32 inches, roughly 76 to 81 cm) but the principle is the same. In a Haussmann building, the double doors of the salon are generous, but the apartment door and the stairwell often are not. In a 1970s building, the elevator makes the rules.
The route to measure, in order: the building entrance, the lobby, the elevator (cab width, depth, height, and the cab door, which is often narrower than the cab), the landings, the turns in the staircase, the apartment door, the hallway, the door of the room. Write down the smallest figure in each category. A 190 cm table almost always makes it because it travels on its edge, and on some pieces the legs come off (ask us). A one-piece three-seat sofa is a different matter.
What we ask before we ship a sofa: the narrowest passage on the route and the ceiling height at the turns. In return we give you the packed dimensions, which are always a little larger than the piece itself. A sofa often goes through standing on its arm, at a diagonal, so the figures that matter are the back height and the seat depth, not the length.
Dining table dimensions: 60 cm per guest, 90 cm behind the chair
Two rules cover nearly every case. Allow 60 cm of table edge per person so nobody's elbows touch, a little less if you are happy to squeeze, 65 to 70 cm if your chairs have arms. And keep at least 90 cm between the table edge and the nearest wall or piece of furniture, so a chair can be pushed back and someone can walk behind a seated guest. Those are the figures in this sizing guide, and they match what we see in clients' homes. With 100 to 120 cm you can carry a dish past the table without asking anyone to stand.
Apply that to the Cardinal dining table: 190 cm long, 80 cm wide, 75 cm high. Three people per long side, six comfortably, eight for a dinner if you add one at each end. The room it needs, with 90 cm of clearance all round: 370 by 260 cm. With 120 cm on the side people walk past, the length goes to 430 cm. In a 14 square meter Paris dining room, that works. In a 12 square meter open kitchen where the path to the living room runs along the table, it is tight, and better known before you order.
The 75 cm height is the European norm: with a seat at 43 to 48 cm, you get 27 to 32 cm between chair and tabletop, which is what crossing your legs requires. Watch the apron. The Romance table has a scalloped apron below the top, so check that the arms of your dining chairs pass beneath it. If you plan to tuck armchairs under, ask us for the clear height under the apron; it is not always on the product page.
And if your room calls for a length that is not in the catalog, our dining tables are made to order with dimensions adapted to your project. A 210 cm table in a room that can take it beats a 190 cm table with two chairs too many.
The sofa: length is the least important figure
Everyone looks at a sofa's length. It is the figure that causes the fewest problems: you see it on the plan, you tape it on the floor, it fits or it does not. The three figures that trip people up are depth, back height and seat height.
Depth decides whether you sit or lie down. A deep sofa, like the Romance sofa with its generously padded seat, invites sideways reading with your feet tucked up; it needs a room where it can be pulled off the wall. A shallower sofa, like the Cardinal with its slatted back, sits you upright and goes against a wall or behind a coffee table with less room behind it. In a 20 square meter living room, the difference in depth between two sofas of the same length can decide whether the coffee table fits at all.
Back height matters for one specific reason: windows. A back taller than the windowsill cuts the view and the light. Measure sill height before you put a sofa under a window. A low back with a radiator behind it is the other trap: leave at least ten centimeters or so between back and radiator so the fabric and the lacquer can breathe.
Seat height, for its part, governs conversation. An armchair whose seat is noticeably lower than the sofa's makes whoever sits in it feel they are looking up at everyone else. When you mix a sofa with two armchairs from elsewhere, compare seat heights to within a few centimeters. It is one reason our two collections have sofas, armchairs and chairs designed together: the heights agree, and you do not have to think about it.
The coffee table: 120 x 80 x 30, and the forty-centimeter rule
The Cardinal coffee table is 120 x 80 x 30 cm, a slatted top on a slatted base, so light passes through and the piece never weighs on the room. That 30 cm height is deliberate: low, below the seat of a sofa. A coffee table higher than the seat makes you lift your arm to set down a glass and visually closes the living room.
Our placement rule: about forty centimeters between the sofa edge and the table edge, enough to pass your legs and stand up, little enough to reach a cup without leaning. And a table length between half and two-thirds of the sofa's. In front of a three-seater, 120 cm is right. Between two armchairs facing each other it is too long, and a side table does the job better.
Nightstands and side tables: the figures people forget
A nightstand is chosen against the height of the mattress, not the bed. With current box springs and mattresses, the top of the bed is often higher than it was twenty years ago. Measure from floor to the top of the mattress and look for a nightstand whose top lands at that level or slightly below. Too low and you fumble for the water glass in the dark. Too high and the lamp shines in your eyes.
A side table follows the same logic against the sofa arm: top at arm height or a touch below. The Romance side table (€650 to €700) and the Cardinal nightstand (€774) are drawn at those working heights. Check depth too: an 80 cm wide nightstand in an 11 square meter bedroom eats the passage between bed and wardrobe, and that is where you bang your shin in the morning.
The scale plan and the cardboard on the floor
Two habits prevent nearly every regret. The first: a scale plan, even hand-drawn on graph paper, with doors, windows, radiators and outlets. Place the furniture on it as paper cutouts at the same scale. An architect does this by reflex; a private client rarely does, which is a pity, because it takes an hour.
The second: cardboard on the floor. Before ordering a 190 cm table, lay out cardboard or painter's tape to its exact footprint, put the chairs around it, and live with it for two days. Walk behind it, open the cupboard, serve a dinner. The body understands what the eye misses on a plan. If after two days you are stepping around the cardboard with irritation, go smaller. If you have stopped noticing it, order.
For a hotel or restaurant project the logic is the same at a larger scale, with one added constraint: the furniture has to arrive in one batch, with identical finishes from one room to the next. Our trade program exists for that, with quotes and lead times fixed from the plan stage.
Questions we get asked
Do your sofas come apart to get through a narrow door?
On some pieces the legs come off for transport; ask us about the piece you have in mind. The body of the sofa stays in one piece. Send us the narrowest passage on the route and the height at the turns before you order: we will tell you whether it fits, and how.
Which dining table for six in a small room?
Allow 60 cm per guest and 90 cm of clearance around. A 190 x 80 cm table therefore needs a room of at least 370 x 260 cm. If you do not have that, keep the width at 80 cm, never more, and push one short end toward a wall: you lose a seat at the end but gain a walkway.
Can you adapt a table's length to our room?
Yes. Our dining tables are made to order with dimensions adapted to your project, within what the design allows. Count 4 to 6 weeks of production. A made-to-measure piece is not returnable within 14 days the way a standard piece is, so measure twice.
Should the sofa be pulled away from the wall?
If the room allows it, yes, even by 10 to 15 cm. A sofa pushed flat against a wall loses its profile, and on a slatted back like the Cardinal's, the profile is the design. In a small room, push it back and make up for it with a narrower coffee table.
Every measurement is on the product pages for tables and seating, and for the ones that are not, we pick up the phone.