A console table in a hallway is a piece of arithmetic before it is a piece of furniture. Measure the width of the hall, protect the walkway, and whatever is left is the deepest table you can put against the wall.
Protect 90cm. That is enough for one person to pass carrying something, and enough to get a sofa or a wardrobe past on delivery day. Below 75cm, a hallway starts to feel like a corridor you edge along, and the table you were pleased with becomes the thing you bump into with the shopping.
Working out your maximum depth
Take the hall width, subtract 90cm, and subtract another 3cm or so for skirting boards, which the table's back will sit against rather than the wall itself.
A 120cm hall leaves 27cm, which is under everything in the range — that hall wants a wall shelf, not a console. A 130cm hall leaves about 37cm, which takes any of the four slim tables. A 150cm hall leaves 57cm and takes anything.
The slim ones, measured
Four consoles in the range are built for exactly this problem. The Five Black Console Table and the Abberley One Drawer Black Console Table are both 30cm deep. The Grafton Black and Berkeley White are 35cm. All four are 120cm to 140cm long, so they read as generous along the wall while taking almost nothing out of the walkway.
The rest are deeper and belong in wider spaces or against a different wall: the Hampton Brown Shagreen at 38cm, the Bentley Grey Aged Oak and Elmley Ivory at 40cm, and the Alton White at 45cm — closer to a sideboard in footprint, and the one to choose if the table is doing storage work rather than hallway work.
Height, and what goes above it
The range runs 76cm to 85cm. The Alton White is 76cm, most sit at 80cm to 81cm, and the Abberley One Drawer is the tallest at 85cm. Anything in that band is comfortable to drop keys onto without looking — a little below a UK kitchen worktop, which is 90cm, and a little above a dining table at 75cm.
If a mirror is going above it, allow 20cm to 30cm between the table top and the bottom of the mirror. If a lamp is going on it, add the lamp's height to the table's: an 80cm console with the 88cm Large Round Gesso Table Lamp on it reaches 168cm, which is above eye level for most people standing — fine for a hallway, where you pass rather than sit, and worth thinking about in a room where you would be looking into the bulb.
Length: leave the doors alone
The one measurement that catches people out is the swing of a door. A 150cm console on the wall opposite the front door is not the problem; a 150cm console on the same wall as an internal door that opens outwards is. Mark the door's arc on the floor with tape before ordering.
The range runs from 100cm (Alton White) to 150cm (Bentley Grey Aged Oak), with most at 120cm to 140cm. In a short hall, a shorter table centred under a mirror looks deliberate; a long table wedged between two door frames looks like it was bought for a different house.
