What Is a Sideboard? Buffets, Servers and Credenzas Sorted Out

Most people who ask what is a sideboard are standing in a dining room with one long, empty wall and a stack of platters that has nowhere to live. That happens to be the problem the piece was invented to solve a little over two centuries ago, and the best ones still solve it.

A sideboard is a long, fairly low storage cabinet that stands against a dining room wall, with drawers and doors below and a flat top at roughly hip height for serving. It holds what the table needs (flatware, linens, platters, serving bowls) and gives you somewhere to set dishes down that is not the table itself. Buffets, servers and credenzas are close relatives, and the names overlap enough that it pays to know what each one usually means before you shop.

The Sideboard Grew Up With the Dining Room

The Victoria and Albert Museum's catalog record for an English mahogany sideboard of about 1790 to 1820 sets out the background clearly. By the 1790s, furnishing a room with a permanent dining table and chairs was popular among merchants and professional people as well as the aristocracy, and the sideboard came with it. Sideboard designs drew on 1770s ideas for shallow tables flanked by urns on pedestal cupboards, and the architect Robert Adam was especially influential.

Those early pieces were built around the meal. Some had a cellaret, a decorative chest that stood underneath to hold wine bottles, and the V&A example hides bottle fittings in a deep drawer behind two false drawer fronts. A brass rail at the back would once have held a silk curtain to keep splashes off the wall.

A century later, Gustav Stickley kept the same purpose and stripped away the ornament. The V&A also holds a Stickley oak sideboard made between 1910 and 1915, stained oak with copper fittings and mirrored glass, about 48 inches wide and 20 inches deep. At the other extreme, the sideboard custom built for Stickley's log house dining room at Craftsman Farms, probably in 1911, is more than 10 feet long, with two large cabinets, graduated drawers and drawer bottoms lined with leather for flatware or cedar for textiles. That lining detail is still a good test of a well-made piece: the drawers are planned around what goes in them.

Sideboard vs Buffet, Server and Credenza

Makers and catalogs use these words loosely, and in both directions. Some draw the line at the floor, as the table below does. Others, including our own guide to styling a Craftsman sideboard and buffet, describe the buffet as the taller, deeper serving cabinet and the sideboard as the longer, lower piece that may take a china top. Both conventions are in everyday use, so when you talk to a maker or a designer, describe the height, depth and base you want as well as the name. The working definitions below follow the most common usage.

In that common usage, the most visible difference between buffet and sideboard is what happens near the floor. A sideboard stands on legs, so you see floor or rug beneath it. A buffet usually carries its case down to a base, which gives deeper lower cabinets and a heavier, more grounded look. Buffets also tend to stand a little taller and deeper, which is exactly why the other convention exists: depending on the catalog, the same tall, deep case may be sold under either name.

The credenza vs sideboard question is mostly about height and room. A credenza sits lower and reads more horizontal, which suits a living room or office wall and makes it a natural media cabinet. A sideboard is tall enough to serve from while standing, and a low credenza is not.

Legs or a Base to the Floor

This choice changes both how the room looks and how the piece works, so decide it before you think about finish.

Legs make a sideboard look lighter. Showing floor under the case opens up a small dining room, lets a hand-knotted rug run underneath and keeps the floor easy to clean. On Arts and Crafts pieces, square legs with through-tenons are part of the design rather than an afterthought.

A base to the floor gives you more storage in the same footprint, because the lower cabinets run deeper. It also hides what accumulates under furniture and suits a heavy load of stoneware. The trade-off is visual weight. A dark, full-height buffet on a short wall can feel like a block, so it suits larger rooms or lighter stains.

Legs or base is a decision worth talking through with your floor plan in hand. Our designers at 747 Miami Circle NE in Atlanta can look over your room measurements and photos any Tuesday to Saturday from 10 until 5, and the design team will also take the question by phone on 404-370-1505. There is no charge for the advice.

Sideboard Height Compared With the Dining Table

Most dining tables stand 28 to 30 inches tall, and most sideboards land somewhere between 32 and 38 inches. That gap is deliberate. A top a few inches above the table sets serving dishes at an easy height for people standing to help themselves, and it gives a pleasing step in height across the room.

A few height details are easy to miss:

• Windows. Measure from the floor to the sill. A sideboard that rises above the sill line blocks light and looks wedged in.

• Chair rails and wainscoting. Older Craftsman houses often have a cap rail around the room. A top that sits just below it or lines up with it looks planned.

• Lamps. A pair of lamps on a 36-inch sideboard puts the light high in the room, so shades should be in proportion to the case rather than to a side table.

• Servers. Taller servers, some around 40 inches, are comfortable for carving or pouring, but they read as more of a cabinet and less of a serving board.

For width, proportion and clearance from the table, along with how to dress the top, the styling guide linked above gives the rules of thumb.

Let Your Storage Decide the Interior

Two sideboards with the same outside dimensions can store very different things, so empty the cupboards you plan to clear and look at what you own. Flatware wants a shallow drawer, ideally felt-lined or divided. Folded tablecloths need a wide, deeper drawer so they are not creased into a narrow space. Platters stand best behind doors on adjustable shelves, and stemware needs enough vertical clearance for your tallest glasses. Measure your biggest platter against the inside of the case rather than the outside: the back panel and doors take some depth, and a fixed center divider can stop a wide platter from going in at all.

Wine is the other common need. If you keep more than a few bottles in the dining room, look at pieces with built-in racks or bottle storage behind a door. The pieces in our wine racks and buffets collection are built to order in the hardwood, stain, hardware and size you choose, which makes them a modern answer to the old cellaret.

Depth matters as much as height. Most sideboards run about 16 to 22 inches deep. Deeper cases hold more, but in a narrow dining room every inch of depth comes out of the walkway behind the chairs, so a slimmer case is often the better choice. Before you order, tape the footprint on the floor, pull a dining chair out behind it as you would at dinner, and check that a cabinet door can still swing fully open.

Which Piece Suits Which Room

The dining room is the sideboard's home, but the right relative depends on the space you have:

A formal or everyday dining room with one long, clear wall usually wants a sideboard or buffet, with the choice between legs and base made on looks and storage. A small dining room or breakfast area often does better with a server, because the narrower footprint leaves room for chairs. A living room or home office is credenza territory, where a lower top works for a television or a printer. A wide hallway or entry can take a slim server as a landing spot for keys and mail.

The same well-built piece can move between these roles over the years. A solid hardwood sideboard that holds holiday china today can hold games in a family room later, which is one reason to buy one good case instead of a series of lighter ones. If you are working out how a sideboard fits a whole dining room, our thoughts on making your dining room a place you love to eat in are a good next read.

The Short Answer, and the Next Step

In everyday terms, a sideboard is the long cabinet that stands a few inches taller than your dining table and keeps serving dishes off it. Sort out the wall, the walkway and what has to fit inside before you think about stain, because those three decide the size and the base, and the wood is the easy part once they are settled.

When you are ready to choose, our sideboards collection is handcrafted in solid hardwood with dovetailed drawers and mortise and tenon joinery, and a custom size is possible when your wall calls for one. For help matching a sideboard to your table and room, phone 404-370-1505 or visit The Mission Motif in Buckhead, where we will work through sizes, wood samples and stains with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a sideboard be used as a TV stand?

A sideboard can do the job, as long as the height works for viewing from your seats. Most sideboards are taller than a typical media cabinet, which can put the screen higher than is comfortable. Check that the case can take the weight of the television and that the back panel allows cords to pass through, or ask the maker about adding a cord opening.

How deep should a sideboard be for a narrow dining room?

Look for a case around 16 to 18 inches deep. That still holds plates and platters while leaving more room for chairs to pull out behind diners. A sideboard on legs also makes a tight room feel more open than a buffet with a solid base.

What is a cellaret?

A cellaret is a lidded chest or fitted compartment for storing wine bottles, often built into or set under early sideboards. Some had metal-lined interiors. Today the same idea appears as wine racks or bottle storage inside a server or buffet.

Should a sideboard have glass doors?

Glass doors turn part of the sideboard into display space, which suits pottery or glassware you want to see. Solid doors hide everyday clutter and keep the look calmer. Many Arts and Crafts pieces combine solid doors at the sides with drawers in the center.

Is a sideboard the same as a hutch?

Not quite. A sideboard is a single, low case with a serving top. A hutch adds an upper case of shelves on top of a similar base, which gives more storage but takes the wall space above that a sideboard leaves open for art, a mirror or sconces.