Were wooden folding tables a part of every household in the 20th century?

Posted by citymatryoshka@reddit | AskABrit | View on Reddit | 43 comments

Hello. I am Eastern European, and growing up, our family had this sturdy wooden folding table that got rolled out for larger gatherings, and I’m pretty sure a bunch of other families did. I was showing it to my coworkers today, some of who are also Slavic, but they said it was just a folding table and was common everywhere in the world. I was surprised and disagreed because it felt like an item very nostalgic of USSR apartments specifically, similarly to carpets on the wall. I haven’t seen this table around in America much at all, and have not heard of these tables being prominent in every household outside the USSR.

So I’m doing some field researcher and asking people of other countries if these were very common growing up or not. Did the UK commonly have them?

Thank you.

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Bright_Spark_UK@reddit

Yes, we have two exactly as you describe - one in my parents’ house and one in my in-laws.

We have a glass version with a swing-out section. Most people I know have tables that change size, many with an internal leaf you put int he middle.

IKEA still sells loads of tables where the sides fold down. It’s a space thing for small modern houses too.

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

Thank you for sharing! Were they typically rectangular or circular, or it could be either one?

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Bright_Spark_UK@reddit

Either - or!

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Fibro-Mite@reddit

We commonly called the type of table with "leaves" that folded down on either side a "drop(ped) leaf table" when I was a kid in the 60s & 70s. So that's what I still call them today. Both my grandparents had them so they could be put up alongside the "normal" table when the extended family gathered for things like Xmas dinner. One set of grandparents had a fairly flimsy lightweight one with a formica top, and the other had this heavy, intricately carved, dark stained, oak one.

When I first moved in with my (now) husband, I deliberately looked for such a type of table in the local secondhand shops so that we could use the dining room as our home office, with the table folded and tucked away in the bay window, but able to be pulled out for family meals.

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bondinchas@reddit

There are two distinct types of folding table.

The first is one that completely folds flat and is put away leaning against a wall, so when not in use there is no table.

The other is one that expands by pulling out a sliding section, or splits in half to insert a centre section, so is normally used as a small table, then extended for extra people to be seated.In the UK this second type is and was far more common in dining / living rooms.

The second type was used for small occasional tables such as card tables, or only as a main table in very small properties such as bedsits.

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shelbyeatenton@reddit

Unfortunately, yes it’s common here! Sorry it’s blowing up your thoughts of being restricted to your country/region. It’s a practical piece of furniture though, so it makes sense it’s common elsewhere.

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

Oh no worries! I guess I never really thought they ONLY existed in the former USSR; but I think my coworkers made it sound like it wasn’t a staple of the normal Soviet apartment, which I still feel like it was. It just seems like other countries had them too. Maybe they were common in countries that had to be economical with their living spaces in general.

Out of curiosity did you guys commonly have those sofas that turned into beds too?

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Queen_of_London@reddit

I'm typing this from a table that can extend in a room that, until recently, also had a sofabed.

Totally normal. Even larger homes often have the same in some parts of the house.

For tables, to be honest I'd say it's less common to have a dining table that *doesn't* have folding extending parts. It does happen, and I'm sure there will be half a dozen Redditors lining up to say their table doesn't fold out, but for family homes the folding or extended leaf table is very common.

My ex had no idea her family dining table was an extended leaf dining table until she saw her Mum shut the extra bits away after a Christmas dinner. The extra people meant that the room felt crowded anyway. and she overlooked the fact that the six seater table now fitted twelve. And had done for twenty years every Christmas.

She genuinely thought they all somehow squeezed in round a six-seater table every Christmas and her Mum was magically able to fit everyone in. Yes, by the magic of extending the bloody table.

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shelbyeatenton@reddit

Yes. My family didn’t though as,at the time, that was quite an expensive purchase. I would say fold out beds were more widespread then (80’s).
I love finding out things that are common between us from afar! Be interesting to see how many other things were more common than we originally thought!

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Odd-Quail01@reddit

Why would folding tables be unfortunate?

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Another_Random_Chap@reddit

We had a main dining table where the two sides could slide apart, and an extension leaf could be hinged up to make the table longer. And then we had a folding table of the same height that we used when we needed more space. The folding table was only about 6 inches wide when folded up, but you could extend one or both sides to make a near 5-foot table. My aunt and uncle had a similar setup.

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sickiesusan@reddit

My grandparents had them when we were young (they passed early 1980’s).
Now it’s still common to have tables that have a middle extending panel to make a table bigger. So my kitchen and dining room tables can go from sitting 4 to 6 or 6 to 8.

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Cheap-Vegetable-4317@reddit

Growing up we had two folding garden tables and chairs, an extendable dining table, a lightweight folding table to take camping. And a folding table for card games with a green felt top.

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Infamous-Sherbert-32@reddit

My grandparents, and other older members of my family, had tables which had leaves that folded out from each side of a smaller table top. Each side had a leg on a hinge which swung out to support the extensions. If memory serves, they were known as ‘gate leg tables’ and as a lot of them were very similar in design I think that they may have been what was called ‘utility furniture’, which was good quality, but plain, and was made after the Second World War, when items were scarce and hard to come by.

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_Nefarium@reddit

We have drop in folding tables in most of the family.

My grandma has a very large old table with a cranked thread running down the middle. You open it up like you would start an old car and then drop in an absolutly huge section of table top kept behind the wardrobe. Huge thing but we can get all 20 of us around it, it's only opened up for Christmas and grandma's birthday.

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Ok_Corner5873@reddit

The USA maybe doesn't have them in houses since they tend to be bigger, but they do exist in smaller apartments where space is at a premium, could be why you've not seen any in the USA. But yes definitely a thing in the UK too.

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Steamrolled777@reddit

What era are you talking about? In 80s my parents had a G-Plan round one, that opened up into a big oval.

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SilverellaUK@reddit

In the Places like church halls generally have tables with a flat top and H shaped legs at each narrow end that fold underneath for storage.

Dining tables that extend are most commonly ones where the top is in 2 halves, when they are pulled apart, an extra leaf folds out from underneath.

Other types of extending tables are:

Gate-legged where there is a central narrow section of the table and two large sections hinge upwards and a gate leg folds out to support them.
Square where extra narrow leaves slides out from 2 sides.
Folding where the entire top of a rectangular table unfolds then spins a quarter of a circle so the base is still supporting the longest side.

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Paulstan67@reddit

Yes extendable/folding tables are a thing.

If you are lucky enough to have a large dining room with a dedicated table then not as popular.

I have a dining kitchen, the table is approx 1.5 meters square and seats 4, however if we pull the table out and extend it it will seat 12.

This one is square, however the last place we lived in we had a round table that would seat 3 or 6 if extended.

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shebasmum49@reddit

UK here. Our dining table ( that my mum still has and I turned 50 on Weds) extends at both ends- basically 2 extra flaps that fold out from under the table and secured with a strut.

Never had extra tables due to home being a small house - mum still living there. Not known anyone in family or friends circles who have or had the folding trestle tables at home.

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Toriat5144@reddit

Most American households had some sort of folding tables. They were often called card tables. They came with folding chairs. Very handy for a holiday.

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

I don’t mean little plastic ones, I mean larger wooden ones for dinners that could sit a lot of people.

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Toriat5144@reddit

They are not plastic. The ones I have are metal and have a padded top. And they are not little. They take a 54 inch table cloth.

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

I see, when I googled card table it was giving me smaller square ones. I do mean specifically a gateleg table made of wood that was typically needed for bigger dinners inside an apartment because of tighter living space. I think Americans usually have traditional dining tables.

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Toriat5144@reddit

Yes that is true.

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Adorable_Past9114@reddit

The majority of UK houses are on the "space efficient" end of the scale, as a result we have had various forms of space saving tables and still do. Many pull apart and have a fold out centre section, there were vintage tables which were square, but you extended them by pulling out a leaf from each end.

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NaomiT29@reddit

Our dining table is a square one with a leaf that pulls out from either side. It used to be in my bedroom at my parents' (still got some splodges of nail varnish on to prove it), having been passed on from my granny. Not sure she got it brand new, either. Could well be from the 40s or 50s, if not earlier!

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

Ok, this makes sense. It seems like the countries that had more sparse living space in the 20th century seemed to have had them more commonly.

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FoxNo1831@reddit

yes, a gateleg or dropleaf table.

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Flibertygibbert@reddit

Yes, my husband grew up in a small flat in Scotland, & they had one.

With both leaves down it was less than a foot wide. The chairs were spread through the flat - one in each of the 2 bedrooms & the other 2 in the living room.

They had to move furniture to get both leaves up.

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Leading_Shock5840@reddit

Still popular in England

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Exact-Character313@reddit

Yes, we had them quite common at home, friends and other family members houses. We had a big decorative rug thing on the wall as well in the 80s, can't remember what the picture on it was but I think it was something Christian religious. It was like 10 feet long

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MillyMcMophead@reddit

We have one, an old oak drop-leaf table that originated in the 1930s. It originally belonged to one of mum's neighbours who swapped it for one of mum's.

It's been all around the family and now it's mine. I have very fond memories of sitting at it when it lived in my nan's house in the sixties.

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

That’s lovely. Those tables can really carry a lot of beautiful memories.

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eventworker@reddit

There are two things that are similar that were very popular in the second half of the 20th century in the UK:

Extendable dining tables. Usually in 'normal' mode the would be circular or near circular, but there would be a way to fold the two halves out leaving a large hole in the middle which would be filled with another piece of wood, thus extending the size of the table.
'Nest's of tables. These were usually a lot smaller and a feature of almost every living room - 3 tables that all fit under the largest, with the two smaller ones being completely separate The idea being you could have a small table for your coffee/tea/newspaper/glasses etc for each item of a 3 piece suite..

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lunisheep@reddit

Still incredibly common in my opinion. I recently bought one for my flat, my mum still has theirs (though a much larger dining table version), and my dad has multiple as he likes old furniture and is a slight hoarder! I would assume it is probably less common in the States as they generally have more space to build (outside of cities), where as most of Europe have smaller houses on average.

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citymatryoshka@reddit (OP)

Yeah this makes sense. Maybe more of European thing. I’m going hit the Latin America subs too and see what they had to say.

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