Round kitchen tables are in and sharp angular kitchen tables are out. At least, if you have been consulting your Feng Shui manual, you'll know that your kitchen will be that much more in harmony if your kitchen table is either round or oval. If you already have a rectangular kitchen table, then at least try to have the corners rounded.
Taking Feng Shui a little further, your round kitchen table should be yellow in color or at least close to. So in that case pine or another light colored wood seems like a good choice.
Maybe you are not a Feng Shui fan. In that case consider the other very practical advantages of round kitchen tables. Firstly you can always find room to seat one more person around a round kitchen table. When you have a large family or many people to visit all of the same time, then as long as you have enough kitchen chairs, you'll always be able to squeeze one more person in.
Secondly, because there are no sharp corners that protrude from the table, round kitchen tables are a better bet when you have small children running around. Naturally, you can always put padding for protectors on the right-angled corners of the square table, but a round table will stay beautiful as it is without the need for any further protection. In addition to that, in a world that's full of straight lines and squares, a few soft curves and circles make a welcome visual break as well.
Thirdly, there is a very social, not to say sociable, aspect to round kitchen tables. There is no "pecking order" in terms of who sits where. Everybody coming to sit down at a round table is equal to everybody else. Round tables also encourage participation in conversation for the same reason. So if you want to get people involved in discussions and feeling fully part of the coffee meeting, the meal or whatever the event is, then round tables have a lot to add to them.
Even though it was outside of a kitchen setting, David Ogilvy, the famous advertising genius, always favored a round table for his team meetings for that very reason. He said that a round table allowed him to see the light of conviction in the eyes of even the most junior members. Taking that same notion into a kitchen and their families setting, you'll see how great it is when even the youngest member of the family takes an active role in family meal times.
Whether you choose a round table for your kitchen that stands on a central pedestal or has four solid table legs underneath, you can also be assured that round kitchen tables will look great from any angle. If you want to go one further with round kitchen tables, then take a leaf out of the Chinese kitchen book. The Chinese have well understood the advantage of using round kitchen tables that turn. This means that they can load up the table surface with great things to eat, and have them rotate around to all the different people round the table.
