glass dining tables? who's got one?

[nappyaddict]

and do they get scratched easily?

Yes!

I had one once - never again. Not only do all the scratches show up, but they're the very devil to keep pristine, and if you don't then every fingerprint, smear and speck of dust shows up. OTOH my parents have a huge wooden dining table (maple, I think) with a glass top, and that looks lovely. It still scratches and gets dusty and/or smeary, but nothing shows up badly because of the woodgrain showing through from below.

I can't think of anything worse than sitting down to dinner and looking at everyone's legs

we have a dining table which has opaque glass in the centre with a wooden suround iykwim, the scratches on the wood are noticable. rather than the glass,

if its one you are going to use for the family - i wouldnt spend a shit load of money only to find yourself shouting at the kids for scraping their fork along the surface

smears would be easily sorted out with an e-cloth. don;t know about scratches.

is there an alternative to wood or glass?

Ours isn't scratched but always looks smudgy and ds bangs things on it and it goes right through me.It looks nice though

we just bought a melamine one - the one on the front page here - more of a ktchen table than dining. there's also a thread about tables here

am now thinking of an oak one. how likely is it to get marked or scratched though? i think i heard somewhere its tougher than pine?

How about an oak one that is already distressed in a rustic fashion?

yep - oak is definitely harder than pine - and infinitely more attractive imho. but it may well still get stracthed