Coffee Table Styling Rules of Thumb
I counted last week, out of morbid curiosity, because I’d just rearranged my coffee table for the third time in four days and needed to know if that was a…
Protecting a Coffee Table Without Hiding It
My sister walked into the living room, looked at the ring already sitting on the coffee table from somebody’s iced tea, looked at me, and said, “You wrote a whole…
Using the Lower Shelf of a Coffee Table
I was on my knees Tuesday morning, vacuum attachment in one hand, phone flashlight in the other, trying to work out what exactly had colonized the space under my coffee…
Console Table Behind a Couch: Sizing and What to Put on It
The reputation console tables have is that they’re furniture store filler. You know the vignette. Three matching books nobody’s ever going to read, a glass vase with two dried stems…
Coffee Table Styling for a Living Room: How Much Is Too Much
I bought an entire coffee table’s worth of decor in one trip to a big box store once, and I mean the whole thing, tray, three “coordinating” candles, a stack…
Glass Coffee Tables: Living With the Fingerprints
I wipe down my coffee table somewhere between six and ten times a day. I know this because I started counting one particularly bad week in February, mostly out of…
Round Coffee Tables: Why Styling Them Is Easier Than It Looks
I was on my knees in my own living room on a Tuesday night, moving the rug for the fourth time that month, when I caught my shin on the…
Living Room Side Table: What Should Be Within Reach
Side tables have a reputation as the furniture equivalent of an afterthought. You buy the sofa first, you agonize over the rug, you spend actual weeks deciding on curtains, and…
Small Coffee Table: Making a Little Surface Work Hard
Small coffee tables have a reputation for being the consolation prize of furniture, the thing you buy when you couldn’t fit the real coffee table, the one with the ottoman…
What Goes in a Bowl on a Coffee Table
Renata walked into my apartment two weekends ago, stopped dead in front of the coffee table, and said, “Chloe. Is that a bowl of rocks.” Not a question really. More…