How do you recognize when to stop breaking down tables? I get that we want to break parts down to their atomic levels, but all parts? I've read via a few texts about relationals and normalization; however I have yet to find out a good set of guidelines on good database practices. As an illustration I can't imagine have 50 - 2 column tables is acceptable. I as well read that one to one relationships should not be combined, yet that does not always seem ideal to me.
Long story short, do you know a best practices article I could read over?