diff --git a/IPython/frontend/qt/console/console_widget.py b/IPython/frontend/qt/console/console_widget.py
index 987f14f..00a0c7b 100644
--- a/IPython/frontend/qt/console/console_widget.py
+++ b/IPython/frontend/qt/console/console_widget.py
@@ -155,6 +155,14 @@ class ConsoleWidget(LoggingConfigurable, QtGui.QWidget):
         with the size of the font.
         """)
 
+    width = Integer(81, config=True,
+        help="""The width of the console at start time in number of caracters
+        """)
+
+    height = Integer(25, config=True,
+        help="""The height of the console at start time in number of caracters
+        """)
+
     # Whether to override ShortcutEvents for the keybindings defined by this
     # widget (Ctrl+n, Ctrl+a, etc). Enable this if you want this widget to take
     # priority (when it has focus) over, e.g., window-level menu shortcuts.
@@ -469,12 +477,12 @@ class ConsoleWidget(LoggingConfigurable, QtGui.QWidget):
         # a fudge factor of one character here.
         # Note 2: QFontMetrics.maxWidth is not used here or anywhere else due
         # to a Qt bug on certain Mac OS systems where it returns 0.
-        width = font_metrics.width(' ') * 81 + margin
+        width = font_metrics.width(' ') * self.width + margin
         width += style.pixelMetric(QtGui.QStyle.PM_ScrollBarExtent)
         if self.paging == 'hsplit':
             width = width * 2 + splitwidth
 
-        height = font_metrics.height() * 25 + margin
+        height = font_metrics.height() * self.height + margin
         if self.paging == 'vsplit':
             height = height * 2 + splitwidth