Buffets and sideboards with stone tops and fluted fronts — the long, low storage piece that finishes a dining room.

A buffet does three jobs at once. It serves as the table’s overflow when the dishes outnumber the surface, it keeps the good glassware, linen and platters close between dinners, and it dresses the one dining room wall that was waiting for something. Ours are designed around that brief: 150 to 200cm long, at a comfortable counter height, with closed storage behind doors and drawers, and a top worthy of styling. Choose white sintered stone over a rippled black frame, a black-and-gold or white-and-silver trimmed base beneath marble-look stone, or a fluted walnut-finish front crowned with a travertine-look top and slim gold handles.

Each sideboard here shares its finish with a wider range, so the dining room can carry one texture through to the living room. The Ripple buffet matches the Ripple coffee tables, console and TV unit; the Chester sits with the Chester dining tables and entertainment unit. Looking for bedroom storage instead? Chests of drawers and tallboys have their own dressers and tallboys page.

Buffet or sideboard: is there a difference?

Very little in practice. Both are long, waist-height storage cabinets. "Buffet" is the dining-room word — it comes from the serving surface. "Sideboard" is the broader term, and the same piece works just as well anchoring a living room wall, a wide hallway or an open-plan space between zones. Every piece on this page will do either job.

What size buffet suits your dining room?

Measure the wall first, then the gap to the table. A buffet wants at least 60cm of clear floor in front so doors and drawers open with someone standing at them, and 90cm or more if that space doubles as the path to pull out dining chairs. Length-wise, 150cm suits a six-seat room; 180 to 200cm balances an eight-seat table or a long open-plan wall. Height is 80 to 92cm across the range — tall enough to serve from without stooping, low enough to hang a mirror or canvas above. Size the piece above it at roughly two-thirds of the buffet's width: a 120cm mirror over a 180cm sideboard.

Stone top or timber top?

All of our buffets use sintered stone or marble-look stone tops rather than quarried marble. The look is the same — white veining, warm travertine tone, black stone with a white vein — but the surface is non-porous, heat-resistant and far more forgiving of a set-down wine glass. Wipe with a soft, slightly damp cloth, keep abrasive cleaners away, and use a tray under anything wet as a matter of habit. Fluted and rippled fronts are dusted along the grooves with a dry cloth.

Styling the top

A lamp at one end, a tall vase or sculptural object at the other, and a low grouping of books or a bowl between — with breathing space, so there is still room to set down a platter. Asymmetry reads more designed than a centred line-up. See table lamps, ginger jars and vases, trays and rectangle mirrors to hang above.

Buffets and sideboards are on display in our Melbourne showrooms in Braybrook, Truganina and Dandenong South, and our Sydney showroom in Auburn — open seven days, so you can open the drawers and judge the build yourself. See everything for the dining room, including dining tables to match a stone top.