Thanks to cable home renovation shows, homeowners are updating their homes following new and exciting ideas. Interior decorating has taken on fresh life, too. Traditional has been replaced by whimsical. Color and texture haven’t been replaced so much as updated. Balance is being established in unexpected ways.
When entering a living room or den, for example, the coffee table is the first thing takes the eye if there are no tall pieces of furniture. Its shape, height, and what’s displayed on it draws you toward it. Styling a coffee table is part of the room’s aura or feeling, so read on to see how it’s done.
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1. Style With Alternate Shapes
Back in the day, coffee tables held the coffee cups on saucers of visitors. Today’s coffee tables make a statement or set a mood. Square tables often feature round bowls of flowers, nuts, or popcorn.
Candlesticks of varying height can be square or round as the spirit takes you. These are frequently set off by books on the corners or across the table for contrast. The same is done with rectangular, round, or oval coffee tables.
2. Style Your Coffee Table Tall
Coffee tables can be built as low to the floor as possible or the height of the sofa and chair cushions. Interior designers use height for balance no matter the height of the table.
For example, tall vases with taller flowers, sculpture or interesting objects placed atop a stack of books, or different candle heights all draw attention to a well-balanced table. Trending now are tall stalks of cotton plants and tall bright yellow forsythia stalks.
3. Styling Using Photo Books
Photo books are the latest method of telling a family’s story. Moments of love, laughter, and joy will never return, so capturing those moments in a photo book are precious. And with so many online options, it’s never been so easy to make your own photo book.
Arrange the photo books on each corner of the coffee table, straight across it, or stack them in inviting piles in the center of the table. You can also place them by height and thickness or by color.
4. Texture Is A Style Of Its Own
Many coffee tables are wood with cushions atop them. Designers very carefully deposit flat plates, interesting wood pieces, or tea trays on these cushions to hold vases with water, bowls of greenery, or a tray containing a carafe and glasses.
The contrast between cloth and china, wood, or silver is arresting and attractive. Popular right now is leather and light blue cushions atop coffee tables.
5. A Colorful Style To Your Coffee Table
Traditionally, white and gray are considered neutral paint colors for interior walls. Homeowners rely on furnishings, art works, pillows, rugs, and flowers for pops of color.
Today’s interior decoration includes what’s put on coffee tables for color as well. Try using brightly colored covers of books, cigarette or cigar boxes, and boldly colored bowls and trays with apples and oranges in them. Looking for something different to put on your coffee table? Try an animal sculpture, goldfish in a bowl, brightly colored terra cotta planters holding odds and ends like anitque magnifying glasses.
6. Functionality Is A Style, Too
After all, it is called a coffee table. Okay, the occasional wine glass, beer stein, or ice tea glass gets placed on a coffee table during conversation, but who’s counting?
While every homeowner wants a slammin’ interior design, it’s no sin to allow pieces of furniture to be what they actually are. While you’re at it, place the baby’s bottle or sippy cup on the coffee table as well. These, too, tell your family’s story.
7. Sustainability Has Become A Style
Eco-conscious homeowners are “going green” from the framing to floating their hard wood floors. Coffee tables are appearing in rattan, sustainable woods, sustainable tile, and corn fibers are even used in textiles covering coffee tables.
Along with attractive furnishings, natural materials add considerably to good indoor air quality. Some are even pest resistant. Add all these together, and you have not only a green coffee table, but you have a personal statement that speaks volumes.
Balance all this natural beauty with vases of colorful flowers, varying sizes of books, and glowing crystal accessories for an endlessly beautiful style.
