Q: How does the shape of a table make a difference when selecting a tablecloth?
A: Tablecloths have two main purposes, and only one of them involves protecting the tables in your establishment from food and drink spills, wine stains, unintentional scrapes and scratches, or any other activity that may permanently damage your table. A tablecloth’s other main purpose, of course, is to increase the aesthetic value of the room in which it happens to be displayed.
Tablecloths come in a very wide variety of materials and styles, and you’ll certainly want to take both of those factors into account while shopping for tablecloths that will work best in your inn’s dining room or the kitchen of your bed-and-breakfast. But because tables come in such a wide are variety of shapes and sizes, the specific shape and size of a tablecloth is something you’ll need to consider as well.
There are four basic shapes of tables: square, rectangle, round and oval. But tables today are available in an incredibly wide variety of sizes and configurations based on those four basic shapes. An oblong table, for instance, is a rectangle having length greater than width. An oval also has length greater than width, but it has continuous curved sides.
Below are images of four fairly common table shapes:
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