Valencia Dining Table - Charcoal Stone

The Valencia Dining Table in Charcoal Stone is 260cm long, 110cm deep and 75cm high, with a stone-look top built for outdoors. At 260cm it seats ten, which is where an outdoor table stops being an overflow and becomes the main one. The top is one surface with no join.

An outdoor table this long is a commitment to eating outside rather than a nice extra, and the material is what decides whether that works. A timber top at 260cm needs oiling every season; a stone-look surface needs wiping, and that difference compounds over years.

At 110cm deep there is room to run platters down the centre with plates either side, which is the point of a wide table and the reason a 90cm one always feels crowded once serving dishes arrive.

Two caveats. It is heavy, so decide the position before it is assembled rather than after, and a large flat surface left in full sun gets hot enough to be unpleasant under a forearm by mid-afternoon.