Most dining sets are designed for a showroom, not for your room. The table runs six inches too long for the bay window, the finish fights with your floors, or the chairs look great until the first spaghetti night. After decades of designing dining rooms, we can tell you the answer is rarely to compromise. It’s to build the set around the room.
That is what UDesign at Cardi’s Furniture & Mattresses is for. It’s Canadel’s online design tool. You choose your table’s shape, size, top, and base, then pick finish colors, chairs, and upholstery while the full set comes together on screen. Here is how we walk clients through it, in the order that keeps you from starting over.
Start Designing Your Dining Set in UDesign
Why Canadel Is Worth Customizing
Before you spend an evening designing, it helps to know what gets built. Canadel is a family-owned manufacturer in Louiseville, Quebec. It has made dining furniture since 1982, and every piece is hand-assembled and hand-finished. The company calls its work “heirlooms in the making.”
UDesign pieces are built primarily from solid birch. They come in an array of 100 colors, 3 finishes, and more than 200 fabrics, all protected by Canadel’s own catalyzed lacquer. Chairs and stools are designed and tested to a 450-pound capacity.
We appreciate that kind of family craftsmanship at Cardi’s Furniture & Mattresses. Our own story began in 1928, when Rosa Cardi opened a general store.
Step 1: Measure the Room Before You Fall for a Table
This is the step people skip, and it’s the one I’d never let a client skip. Keep at least 36 inches between the table edge and the nearest wall or piece of furniture so chairs can slide out and people can pass. On sides that get foot traffic, like the path to the kitchen, plan for 42 to 48 inches. For seating, allow about 24 inches of table edge per person.
The quick math: measure the room’s length and width, then subtract 36 inches for each side where people sit. For a 12-by-14-foot dining room, that leaves a maximum table footprint of about 72 by 96 inches.
Then do what we do on every project. Outline the table on the floor with painter’s tape and live with it for a day or two. Walk around it, pull out a chair, and carry a laundry basket past it. While you’re down there, note heat registers and radiators. It’s a good idea to keeping solid wood away from radiators, hot air vents, and wood stoves.
Map Your Dining Room in the Room Planner
Step 2: Choose the Collection That Matches Your Home
UDesign at Cardi’s Furniture & Mattresses includes four Canadel collections, each with its own personality:
- Canadel blends timeless and transitional looks. If your home mixes old and new, like so many New England capes and colonials, start here.
- Modern is clean and contemporary with bold silhouettes. It suits open floor plans where the table is on display from the kitchen and living room.
- Downtown has a refined, mid-century feel with sculptural details and minimalist lines. Pick it when you want the table to start conversations.
- Gourmet is stylish, highly customizable dining built for everyday living. This is Canadel’s most affordable custom option, and it’s a smart fit for eat-in kitchens.
Choose the collection by the feeling you want when you walk into the room. The details come next.
Step 3: Build the Table Around How You Actually Eat
Depending on the collection, Canadel tables come in rectangular, round, square, oval, boat-shaped, and drop-leaf styles. Tops are available in solid wood, glass, or porcelain, with leg or pedestal bases. A few pairings we come back to again and again:
- Round pedestal: The hero of a tight kitchen or breakfast nook. With no corner legs, you can tuck in an extra chair when the neighbors stop by.
- Boat-shaped: Our go-to for long, narrow dining rooms. It’s wider at the center and narrower at the ends, which opens up the path around the table.
- Drop-leaf: Works hard in a condo or small apartment, where the table needs to shrink between meals.
Think about how the table gets used, too. There’s a real line between kitchen and dining tables:
- Kitchen tables generally run 78 inches or less. Their finishes are treated to resist heat from mugs, scratches, and abrasion.
- Dining tables run longer, and their finishes lean toward refinement.
If homework, laptops, and morning coffee happen here, that difference matters more than the color.
One honest piece of advice: decide on leaves now. Don’t add or replace a leaf later. Wood shifts color with light and moves with humidity, so a new leaf may not match or fit a table you’ve owned for years. If you host even one holiday a year, order the leaf.
Each UDesign model comes in a set range of sizes, not any dimension you can imagine. Your measurements from Step 1 tell you which size is the right one.
Step 4: Pick a Finish You’ll Love in Daylight
Two finish types you’ll see often in these collections look very different up close:
Matte is the smoothest finish Canadel offers. It’s neutral and pairs with classic, transitional, modern, and contemporary rooms. You’ll find it in the Canadel, Downtown, and Gourmet collections.
Antique keeps the richness of matte but adds subtle marks for a softly aged, natural look. It suits classic, transitional, coastal, and farmhouse rooms. You’ll find it in the Canadel and Gourmet collections.
For color, anchor to something you aren’t changing, like your floors, cabinets, or trim. We usually steer clients toward contrast rather than an exact match, because a table the same tone as the floor tends to disappear into it. UDesign lets you test combinations, such as a wood-tone top over a painted base, before you commit.
Then trust samples over screens. Colors online can differ from in-store samples. That’s why the final color decision should be made in the showroom.
Step 5: Choose Chairs and Upholstery for Real Life
The chair is the piece your family touches every single day, so this is where we slow down. UDesign lets you style chairs, stools, and benches. Upholstery ranges from leather and velvet to a wide variety of fabrics.
A few things matter more than people expect:
Mix your seating. Upholstered chairs at the heads of the table with simpler side chairs look intentional, not mismatched. A bench along the wall side seats more kids and lightens a small room visually.
Ask for the cleaning code. Canadel labels upholstered pieces with a cleaning code and care recommendations. If you have kids, pets, or a red-wine crowd, let that code guide your fabric choice before the color does.
Consider swivel stools for the island. Since September 2024, Canadel has used Trendler swivel mechanisms. They carry a lifetime warranty for household use by the original purchaser. To feel the build quality first, take a look at the Canadel Core Swivel Counter Stool we carry. You can also browse our stools and benches.
Step 6: Bring Your Design to a Cardi’s Furniture & Mattresses Showroom
You can start UDesign in two ways:
- From the photo gallery: Pick a finished set. Each one has its own Quick Code.
- From a collection: Build your set piece by piece.
Once your design is close, come see us. Our furniture specialists will work through it with you using real wood samples, finish samples, fabrics, hardware, and construction details.
To make that visit count, bring:
- Your room measurements, with doorways, windows, and heat sources marked
- Daylight photos of the room, the floors, and any adjoining rooms you can see from the table
- How many people you seat on a normal night, and how many at the holidays
A quick note on timing: every UDesign piece is built to order, so it isn’t a same-week purchase. Ask us for current timing when you order. If you’re designing for a holiday or another date, tell us up front. If you need a table sooner, browse our dining sets for in-stock options. Special financing is also available on qualifying purchases.
Find a Cardi’s Furniture & Mattresses Showroom Near You
A Table Sized for Your Life Is the One You Keep
The dining sets that stay in a family for decades aren’t the trendiest ones. They’re the ones that fit the room, the routine, and the Sunday crowd. Measure first, choose a collection with the right feel, and build the table around how you eat. Then let the showroom samples make the final call. You’ll end up with a set that feels like it was always meant to be there, because it was.