Sideboards & Cabinets

How to choose a sideboard

A sideboard is one of the few pieces of furniture that has to do its job and look good doing it. It holds the things the dining or living room can't quite live with on display: spare crockery, table linen, candles, the cables for things you've forgotten you own. Get the size, the proportions and the storage layout right and it earns its keep for twenty years.

Size follows the wall. A sideboard wants to occupy roughly half to two-thirds of the wall it sits against; less than half reads under-scaled, more than two-thirds reads over-furnished. Standard widths are 120, 150, 180 and 220cm. Match the depth to the room: 40cm minimum if you want anything other than candles on top; 45 to 50cm is the comfortable range for serving and display.

Material and construction are the long-term spec.

• Solid oak is the British default. Dovetailed drawers, mortise-and-tenon joints, real timber on the visible faces. £600 to £1,800 for a 180cm three-door piece. Ages well, repairs easily, holds value.
• Painted-on-oak finishes (Bridstow Blue, Charcoal Grey, Stone) sit at the same price band as solid oak and read more contemporary. The painted faces show fewer scuffs than natural timber.
• Walnut and other hardwoods sit at the upper end (£1,200 to £3,000+), with finer grain and darker tones suiting more formal interiors.
• Veneer-on-MDF dominates the £200 to £500 bracket. Looks like the solid version for two years. Corners chip easily and the veneer lifts at the edges by year five.

Door and drawer layout matters more than people realise. The standard split for a 180cm sideboard is two end-cupboards either side of two or three central drawers. The drawers handle everyday items (cutlery, table linen, chargers); the cupboards handle the bigger or less-used pieces. Two-cupboard / no-drawer designs look cleaner but lose the practical drawer storage. Glass-fronted display cabinets are a different category; they show off rather than hide.

Style tracks the room. Sideboards work in dining rooms, living rooms and hallways with equal ease, but they need to match the room's other big pieces. A traditional oak sideboard next to a velvet corner sofa reads as a furniture-shop showroom. Mid-century walnut next to country-style oak reads as accidentally inherited. Pick the era and stick to it.

The brands and retailers we list

We pull around 17,800 sideboards and cabinets from across the UK retailer network.

Robert Dyas stocks the broadest selection with around 7,200 listings covering oak, painted, glass and contemporary designs from £150 to £1,500.

The Range covers around 3,900 sideboards in the £100 to £600 value-to-mid bracket.

Furniture in Fashion stocks around 2,100 contemporary sideboards including high-gloss, marble-top and metal-frame designs at £400 to £1,800.

Oak & More covers solid-oak and oak-and-painted sideboards in the upper-mid bracket, with built-to-order ranges priced £600 to £2,500.

Filter the grid above by colour, material or price to narrow things down, or browse the full sideboard range without filters to see everything in stock. Prices update daily.