apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

First - six feet of depth is really generous in DC - usually you get five (which meets ADA - and I've worked on buildings in the past with only 24 inches of 'balcony') - so consider yourself lucky. My balcony is only four feet. But you are right it is narrow for the supersized tables sold at most stores. (to match the supersized armchairs and sofas)
Last summer I bought the Granso from Ikea - for only $50 - it seemed like a good solution until I found the 'perfect' table. It's stable even with the strong winds off the Potomac - ciritical for my balcony. The top is some kind of laminate, which won't last for forever, but it still looks good after one year (I have no indoor storage so it survived the little snow we got last winter). It's so simple and inoffensive - I may just refinish the top when it looks bad.
Alex

I love the outdoor furniture @ Fortuoff

http://www.fortunoff.com/dept.asp?dept_id=500206&op=&w=1024

I don't know the particular dimensions of their bistro tables, but they have a couple that look like they might work.

m

Would "counter-height" or "bar-table" with stools might fit the bill?

http://www.dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=0128

What about this bad boy: http://tinyurl.com/ju56u ?

I know it isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it looks like a good space saver and I imagine it would hook right over your railing.

what about this:
http://ww1.potterybarn.com/cat/pip.cfm?src=shpcsalnew%7Crshop%2Fshpcsal%7Crshop&pkey=csalnew&gids=p6732

How about www.bar-stools-barstools.com

They sell pedestal table legs in a variety of heights and styles. They also sell tabletops. Or you could create your own from polyed wood, marble, mosaic, corian, glass, etc.

Enaje

what about a custom combo of table top and bases @ room and board?

-kellen

That Ikea thing is ingenious! Good old Ikea.

If you go with a bar table like the pottery Barn one, and push it up to the railing, please do a saftey railing around it! A can of soda falling several floors...Ach.

Continuing on the idea enaje has, perhaps you could use a couple of pots or planters (like the tall ones in your photo, weighted with sand, and attach a plank top built to your specifications. You could even run a piece of pipe from the plank down through the pot to a flat metal plate at the bottom (a flange), making it all easy to take apart if the need arises. You need not fill the pots all the way with sand, btw. The idea is to make them stable enough that you only need two, not four, for your narrow table.

Depending on the weight limitations of your balcony, and your requirements for making this easy to move around, you can get small stone table tops made cheaply by visiting a marble fabricator and buying a remnant. You generally end up paying just for the grinding of the edges. Fabricators always have pieces of counter that broke during transport or cutting. You will need a couple of strong friends with a truck or van for this. Build simple legs with 4" by 4" lumber, crossbraced with smaller pieces.

And finally...the width you mention is just slightly smaller than most backless garden benches (they tend to be 18"). You can often buy a bench top separately. Come up with longer legs...there ya go. I'm thinking of the kind of bench that'm made of evenly-spaced slats of wood and is designed to straddle two planter boxes. It would be easy to attach trestle-style legs to that. Home Garden and Patio has them online, but you should be able to find one locally at a garden shop. Another possibility is a coffee table (again, generally 18-20"). Just change out the legs. My local Morocan-rug-and-decor shop has some marble-inlay table tops in those dimensions that would look fab on a balcony. Hire an iron worker to do legs, or get creative with some garden ornaments for a base.

With this wide and shallow of a space, I would get a long, narrow bar counter-style table, shove it right up against the balcony, and put a few bar stools right behind it so several people can eat and look out at the view. The make-your-own approach described here sounds like a good one, or you should try looking for console tables or bars on the various patio sites instead of looking for a cafe table or bistro table - those are indeed all typically a 26" width at the smallest.

I'm not really sure why you think the width requires a table so narrow however; my own little NY-style balcony is probably not even that deep and I'm hoping to be able to squeeze a 30" table onto it so it will be comfortable for actually eating meals.

Don't push the tall table and bar stools next to the railing. Higher center of gravity + clumsy oafs like me = law suit for wrongful death by my relatives.

Following along in JenPDX's footsteps, similar table, for a lot less:
http://tinyurl.com/mgaqg

There are a lot of good deals if you look for products meant for commercial/retail establishments, even educational facility supplys. The table is similar to the DWR design, but the one at the above link is $145.03 compared to DWR's $278.00.

Have the chairs and table away from the railing, where you can enjoy the view and still not risk life and limb (yours or your guests or the people below onto whom the falling body would come to rest).

How many people do you need to seat on the balcony 95% of the time? If it's just you, get the extra chair. My examples take things to the extreme. Okay, so you host a family reunion, and you have 20 people over to your apartment. Do you really want to buy a table and chairs to seat 20 people for this one time? That's ridiculous. It's not less ridiculous to have seating for four when there's only you and an occasional guest or two. You're cluttering your home expecting things to happen that don't happen.

And, let's say your apartment is a one-bedroom. That means the balcony is pretty much designed to hold a couple of people and some kind of furniture. It's NOT meant to hold those 20 people at the family reunion. It MIGHT hold them, but it wasn't necessarily designed to hold them.

Let us know what styles you like and the details of what you NEED, and maybe we can find something for you!

We bought the DWR pinot bistro table two summers ago for our balcony and while we have tried to take good care of it, the top is now very scratched. Don't buy it.

I'm going to have to echo Andree's concerns about the weight the balcony can hold. Unless this is some kind of concrete terrace, you shouldn't have a dinner party out there. I don't like to be on balconies if I estimate 1000 lbs is on there already. That's the point at which I go back inside. And 1000 lbs is only 6 average people!

For 2-3 guests, I would suggest getting small square outdoor bar-style tables - folding is fine, and draping a tablecloth over them. Stylish folding chairs should be fine as well. I would avoid anything labelled specifically as "patio" furniture. Find something that is fairly weather resistant and that can be easily stored.

I don't think you should worry about seeing over the railing. the railing seems like the average balcony height. The way to appreciate a balcony's view is by standing!

I recently bought shorter legs from http://www.kitchensource.com/

They had all sorts of shorter and adjustable table bases for restaurants. You could get a great top and slap it on one of their bases. They do have a minimum order requirement [you have to order $50 or pay $10 extra], but I was really glad to find the shorter table legs and as far as I was concerned, it was still a bargain.

mary--

The opening line "I recently bought shorter legs" made me totally laugh out loud.

Alex -- What is your perfect table? You talk about it, but don't say what it is or where you got it. You say you found something you like better than your Granso, right? What??? :-)

I think by "it seemed like a good solution until I found the 'perfect' table." means he hasn't found the perfect table yet, and the description that follows is actually about the Ikea Granso...

Another idea...

Get a backless bench and push it up against the building side of the balcony. Buy big Sunbrella pillows for backrests, or (if you can mount something on the wall) make a banquette-style cushion that can be hung across the back in the manner of a kitchen cabinet (hung from a beveled bar of wood, in other words) Push a regular rectangular table up to it, and have a couple of stools or light chairs available for the other side when needed. If you prefer a bench with a back, just make sure the table is shorter than the length of the bench so you can slip and out in there easily. Sounds cozy to me.

(Most people would buy longer legs, I think, if given the choice in life. Gets you places faster.)

Patrick - you are absolutely right - still haven't found the perfect table. sorry for the grammatical error. Ken - the perfect table would not have @#%@ laminate on the top - so stupid.
What I want is a small bistro type table - the kind restaurant buy for outdoor seating - preferably with a buffed concrete top. The only source I know of would be buying a base from restaurant supply and adding the top - which can be pretty pricey when buying only one -- and no discount for architects - boo. To be honest, I like the base well enough that I will probably retop it sometime in the future - which will be pretty close to 'perfect'.

If you can't access via the url provided, go to:

http://www.improvementscatalog.com/

click on: Outdoor, Outdoor living, Furniture, Outdoor furniture

Go to page 2, last item and click on Patio Furniture

I don't know this company, therefore, cannot comment on verity.

Kenneth, I am in the same boat as you. We have a 6' wide porch off the back of our house leading down to a larger patio area, but we wanted to put a small table and 2 or 3 chairs on the porch so we could have breakfast outside while we enjoy the view of the garden. The perfect height is 36".
A 42" table is too high. Ideally, it would be better if the table was somewhere between 24 - 28". It is very difficult to find ready-made because I have looked also. I see that most of this discussion happened last year. But it's finally gotten warm again, so it's time to start looking again. I searched on balcony tables and this lead to your question. So? Did you have any luck finding anything?

All of you have got to check out www.thebalconybar.com This product will take care of everything you are talking about. Very high end.

http://www.balconybars.com.au/balconybars.html

just surfing and came across this....seems like a good solution.