Sideboards for the living room: varieties and tips for choosing

A sideboard is a special type of furniture that is designed to store various dishes, all kinds of decor items, and sometimes also different food products. Previously, this item was placed in the living room, the owners put the most beautiful and expensive sets and crystal on its shelves to demonstrate to the guests the wealth of their family.

Many modern housewives seriously believe that the sideboard is an outdated type of furniture, and therefore is not suitable for interior decoration. Actually any cupboard for dishes will be able to transform the design of the kitchen, guest room or dining room beyond recognition, if you fit it correctly into the existing interior.

In its classic form, it has 3 parts:

• at the bottom there is a storage unit in the form of a small cabinet - either with drawers or with swing doors (they can be combined);
• up there are open shelves or a wardrobe with swing doors, sometimes with glass inserts;
• between top and bottom often there is an empty space, which can play the role of a tabletop or the most convenient plane for displaying beautiful dishes for viewing guests and households.

In terms of internal features, this type of product has its own classification.

• Corner sideboard... Great for large rooms where you don't need to save space.

• Slide. This is another type of sideboard that is most often purchased for oversized rooms. These types of structures are usually equipped with a place for a TV.

• Buffets, which are used as cabinets for the purpose of storing household items - appliances, linen, household items... This design of the sideboard is usually equipped with transparent doors. Cupboards are not very popular these days and are extremely rare.

• Suspended type. Wall-hung models. It is best to place them in the kitchen, since this is where they can perfectly fit into the work area.

• The usual chest of drawers is outwardly very close to the traditional sideboard, if it is supplemented with doors that swing open or slide open. Such a sideboard-chest of drawers is in demand in rooms that are oversized in size.

• Showcases. A showcase sideboard is needed to complement the beautiful interior of the room with the help of luxurious sets, sets of expensive porcelain, and crystal wine glasses.

There are no definite clear standards for the parameters of buffets. You can always choose a buffet of the size you need, for example, depending on the height of the ceilings in your home or on the size of the kitchen set.

You can also find many different options for the width of the models - from very narrow products with single-leaf doors to solid sideboards with a sufficiently spacious system for storing things and food.

The ratio of the size of the buffet to the parameters of the room should be clearly thought out. A bulky structure should not be displayed in a small room, and on the contrary, a mini sideboard may not be the best option for a large room.

All models of sideboards today can be classified according to the materials from which they are made.

When producing expensive sideboards, natural wood is used. In this case, sideboards are more often produced in the Baroque or Rococo styles, as well as the Empire style. The massif is still considered a symbol of wealth in the furniture industry; wooden furniture gives the room solidity and presentability.

Metal furniture can most often be seen in offices and other non-residential premises. This kind of bulky sideboard in the house is most often a stylish piece of furniture that belongs to to expensive antiques.

One of the most popular furniture materials on the modern market. Models from MDF are distinguished by a long service life, richness of colors, stylish appearance and original texture, as well as a certain level of durability.

Glass sideboards always look elegant and spacious. They allow you to visually make a small room wider.

Each style has its own color composition, which allows you to highlight its main aspects.

• V classic products can be produced in golden or chocolate, milk and beige colors.
• For provence lilac or pink colors of the sideboards are characteristic; also on the facades of products there may be drawings in the form of flowers or outlines of cities.
• Shabby chic are distinguished by discreet colors - mint, lemon, sand. There must be abrasions on the doors.
• Country buffets are available in highlighted colors.
• Colors in trendy style modern - from light brown colors to deep black.
• In models in style loft dark or beige colors predominate.
• Furniture for style retro assumes the active use of black and white, red and green colors.
• Buffet color palette in a minimalist style - from chocolate to beige, wenge color is often found.

Depending on the type, color and design of the sideboard, its model fits into a certain style of the interior.

Models are produced from solid wood. Most often, these are white elegant products for storing expensive porcelain or fragile crystal. This kind of sideboard is distinguished by curved legs, a decorative carved top, as well as the presence of stained glass or frosted glass.

Antique items in this style are either antique or produced in modern production and are stylized in antique style. Vintage models are characterized by an open top and closed bottom, small shelves in the middle of the structure. Sideboards designed in Provence style are made of solid wood and MDF.

This style implies a romantically decorated sideboard. As a rule, there are scuffs and floral motifs on the doors of cabinets - calm drawings of lavender, a low-key rural landscape. This is a very discreet style. Often such a product can be without glass at all, and the shelves remain open.

This is a rustic decoration. The style is a bit naive, simplistic, but at the same time cozy. Sideboards can consist of either one or two or three sections, have doors with a fairly thin glass.

The Art Nouveau sideboard will have simple streamlined shapes with soft lines, laconicism and creative decor. Sideboards are often decorated with floral designs.

A product in this design will not look very standard. There will be no glasses in such a model; instead, mesh door sashes are used - artistic forging can be used here. The legs of the sideboard will be fragile; the facades may contain chains, various inserts and fashionable decor.

The retro-style sideboard also has thin legs, but at the same time, a very elongated body. It is typical for him combination of smooth rounded shapes and functionality... The sideboard is made of MDF, but at the same time it can have decorative plastic inserts, original oval fittings.

This style is diverse. Here you can easily find Japanese and Indian, Chinese and Egyptian national motives.

They will all be distinguished by their appearance: the presence of ethnic motives, the frequent use of natural materials. For example, the ethnic oriental style will give the sideboard a large number of openwork details, stylish handmade carvings, mesh doors, and the Japanese version will differ in triangle-shaped shapes, simplicity and calm tones.

A sideboard in this popular style will have a straight and austere outline, here you will not find a single superfluous detail. For the manufacture of the sideboard, oak veneer, chipboard and MDF are used. The fittings in such a cupboard will either be invisible to the eye, or it will imitate the material of manufacture of the cabinet itself.

So that the stylish sideboard stands out catchy in the already finished kitchen interior, but at the same time it successfully maintains its integrity design, you just need to choose a product either in the same style as the kitchen furniture, but in a different color, or in a similar color option, but with a different texture or a different style.

The sideboard can be made of the same type of wood as the table with chairs, or the glass top can be 100% similar to the inserts on the doors of the product.

One of the bold ways to decorate the sideboard is to make it an accent in the interior being created. A bright and colorful sideboard can become the one and only accent component in a voluminous and bright kitchen or large dining room.

There are a number of points that should be taken into account when choosing this type of furniture.

• When buying a buffet, you need first of all pay attention to the material from which it was made. It is best to give preference to natural wood - pine, cedar, oak. The thing is that the quality of the furniture made of chipboard will be lower, although the low cost makes the manufactured product more affordable.

• Pay attention also to the possibility of disassembling the sideboard. Collapsible models are considered to be very simple and extremely convenient to use, because they can be brought home quite easily disassembled, and also transported neatly if necessary. Non-collapsible options are much more difficult to transport, but their main advantage will be greater durability and enviable strength.

• The quality of the fittings used should also be taken into account.... Since during use you will often open and close the doors of the product, poor fittings will lead to frequent breakdowns of the sideboard.

• During the selection of the buffet it is worth calculating in advance what area your living room or kitchen has. If the room is spacious enough, you can safely purchase large-sized furniture that has the ability to emphasize all the advantages of the interior.

If there is a niche in your dining room or kitchen, then it can be wisely used to install a new sideboard.

Vintage sideboards are common in modern kitchens and dining rooms. It is worth knowing that many modern models, even in their traditional form, are specially aged with the help of various design techniques.

Large sideboards, which are installed along the entire wall, look good only in large rooms. That is why they are in such high demand among the owners of private houses.

The following video provides an overview of a sideboard suitable for a classic living room interior.