An 11-Foot Custom Dining Table That Seats 12

When three siblings jointly purchased a vacation home in Venice Beach, California, they had quality family time in mind. Including spouses and kids, the place needed to accommodate nine people (with room to grow)! So as Los Angeles-based interior designer Natalie Myers of Veneer Designs reimagined the modern house with a relaxed surfer look inspired by the Australian coast (which the family loved for its laid-back nature), she made sure to provide a custom dining table that could seat the entire brood.

Myers custom-designed the 11-foot piece with a racetrack-style tabletop that lets up to 12 people eat together at once. Without any extension feature, it provides a seamless surface for relatives who are excited to reunite once again — and offers more intimacy and easier conversation than at a round table.

The Brief: “Because there are so many of them and they wanted to be able to use the place together, they needed a custom dining table that was large enough to seat their whole family. They gave me a lot of free reins stylistically.”

Why Custom: “We couldn’t find a table that size commercially. The most we could find was an extension table, but tables that are 11 feet long aren’t exactly common in stores.”

The Design Process: “We were looking at a few different styles and they couldn’t really agree, so we kind of made a mish-mosh. The base has a crossbeam and two bigger side panels (versus legs). That was one main element that they wanted. We chose the racetrack shape because you could squeeze in more people. At the heads of a rectangular table, you can only sit one person. If it has rounded corners, you can fit two people on each end.”

The Materials: “We went with white oak because it’s one of my favorite lighter blonde woods and there are other white oak pieces in the house. We weren’t going to do dark wood in order to keep it airy and beachy. We used solid white oak instead of a veneer, to have more stability and have it feel like it’s not going anywhere.”