Coffee Tables: How To Make The Right Choice For Your Home

Have you ever been in a home where the coffee table absolutely dwarfed the rest of the room? It can be hard to have a conversation when the sofa and recliners are separated by a table that seems more suited to having a picnic than to hosting guests and serving coffee. Then there are those perfect coffee tables that happen to be too high or low so that you either need to stand up or kneel down to retrieve a drink. Let's face it: the coffee table is one difficult piece of furniture to get right and when we get it wrong—we get it REALLY wrong!

The perfect coffee table for your home décor will be unique for all of us. However, there are some things to avoid when buying a coffee table to make sure that you don't get the WRONG coffee table for your furniture and design scheme. One of those mistakes is buy premium coffee tables that are not to scale with the room dimensions.

Depending on your furniture arrangement, it is a good idea for the coffee table to be within 16 inches of the sofa, love seat, and any chairs that are central to the main seating area. The larger the seating area, the larger the coffee table needs to be. The idea is for guests to have access to the coffee table without feeling cramped when getting in and out of their seats. It is also a good idea to measure not only the dimensions of the room, but also of any doorways leading into the room as well. If the delivery people can't get the table through the door then it doesn't matter how great it would look in your living room.

Another common mistake people tend to make with coffee tables is to use them as storage spaces. One of the secrets to home décor is to always have a focal point to the room. The coffee table is a natural focal point of the room because it is generally found near the center of the room and featured in front of the seating area. However, when homeowners use their gorgeous coffee tables as storage areas for bills, newspapers, and anything else convenient, then it is easy to see how the entire area becomes unattractive. Prominently displaying candles, centerpieces, accent lamps, and other artistic décor will help the coffee table become the focal point of the room and bring an entirely different feel to the entire seating area.