How can I find a new home for a large oak dining table

[Papyrophile]

We're downsizing for our retirement, or planning it. We inherited the family dining table, seats 16 or, leaves removed it becomes square, and seats eight, plus 12 chairs. It's solid oak, but brown furniture and much too big for most houses. How do I find it a new home?

Somewhere there’s a goth with a big house who will love it but you will have to market it far and wide.

You say that but I do know a married goth with a huge house (he’s an architect) and his furniture is very like this.

@HermitCrabby we couldn't really be further from your very useful dealer, as we are in Cornwall. Dread to think what the transport cost would be!

We haven't put the house on the market yet, so there's time.

You need a celeb with a new mansion in the Cotswolds.

Put it on Facebook marketplace, someone will have it. There are plenty of big houses in Cornwall - plus hotels, National Trust properties etc. You won't get much/any money for it but it will find a home.

It's beautiful @Papyrophile 😍 We used to have something similar and exactly the same chairs when we had our big house.

We also had two fabulous, heavily carved French 'buffets' and a hand-painted burgundy/gold trefoil border beneath the picture rail on the Oval Room Blue walls but we did have a very gothic styled dining room!

We sold the table and chairs to friends who have enormous rooms in their sprawling flat - and share our taste for antique furniture and related stuff. There are more people about who like this style than you think.

I'm sure if you put it on eBay someone with the space will love it and pay a reasonably decent price for it. I certainly would if we didn't now live in a cute little cottage!

There's brown furniture and brown furniture, imo. When we were downsizing recently we sold an antique sideboard for £4000 to a specialist dealer we'd previously dealt with (he obviously knew he'd make a profit when moving it on, but we were happy with that) 😉

I had a table and 10 chairs not dissimilar in size 18 mths ago and a charity local to me but with branches in cities sent 4 burly men in a van to collect the goods.

Upon arrival, they inspected, rang their manager and said 6 were of a viable quality to take (!) and sent her photos (!) and left the remaining 4 with me 🤦🏻‍♀️

As helpful as a chocolate teapot!

Looks more like a mahogany top to me. Highly polished and dark for oak. You obviously cannot leave it, so you have to try and sell it.

I think it’s fab!! So unique. The LEGS. Doesn’t need to go in an old fashioned space, It would make an amazing statement in a very modern open plan kitchen/diner. Especially if the shiny top could be sanded. The issue isn’t that it’s brown (what other colour should it be?!), as you say it’s the fact that so few houses can take something so large and dominant. If auction house isn’t interested then FB marketplace is well worth a go, and I wouldn’t list it for free- it’s quite special. Make sure you feature the legs in any pics!!

I do think it will sell on eBay, may just take some time.
Look up sold prices to get an idea of pricing and offer to send it with Shiply to keep delivery costs down.
I also agree first port of call would be to offer it to the buyers. Leave it in the house when it goes on the market.
I sold our large family home last year and my buyers bought lots of the large pieces of furniture, too big to take and they knew it can be hard and costly to find pieces to fit large rooms.

I think it's lush and classy. Big houses need big tables because small tables in big houses looks lame. Apparently there is a big market in the States for British antiques so it might be worth calling around a few dealers.

• *@HermitCrabby& @MeetMeOnTheCorner. I work a lot with old oak and occasionally with mahogany. Surely you don’t get those medullary rays with mahogany. They are a typical of quarter sawn oak.
  It will have been stained.
  You can see a similar table in this photo showing similar colour.

We bought a load of Victorian furniture from a couple who were downsizing. Including a dining room table that seats 12, but it comes apart to create 4 small tables, so more versatile. And 2 chests of drawers and a marble topped table. It suits are house, I liked we were giving it a new life. It’s worth advertising….

Not the same but I put a Super Kingsize Four Poster Wooden Bed up for sale on Ebay. Buyer disassemble and collect. I got £100. I was grateful someone come and took it tbh. Large furniture is just not fashionable/useable in modern houses.
I inherited my DM's large oak dining table. It is absolutely lovely but it takes up so much room. Feel loathe to sell it for a giveaway price at present.

Wait to see if the potential house buyer wants it before worrying about finding a new owner.

Oh it’s gorgeous! I love it. Sadly my dining room is tiny.

Ebay or FB marketplace, or do you have a local buying/selling site? (I get rid of all of my old stuff via East Dulwich forum despite not living in East Dulwich, so you may have other local sites you aren’t aware of that are very active). Failing that, an antiques shop or auction house? Lots of cafes would use a table like that as a communal table.