The Furniture Blog

The coffee table is in an interesting piece of living room furniture. It might just be the most versatile piece in the household. When you think about it, how people use their coffee table differs from house to house. Similarly, the function one coffee table serves within the same house might be different from day to day. Because of its wide range of possible uses, the coffee table is also a difficult piece to accessorize.

Perhaps the most common function for a coffee table is simply to decorate. So many people use the coffee table in this way. Its function, in this case, is actually its form. These coffee tables are easier to accessorize because chances are that once the accessories are in place, they’ll be staying there for a while.

On the other hand, if your coffee table sees the kind of use that mine does, accessories will move on a daily basis. My coffee table is used for dining, playing Scrabble, holding beverages, resting feet, and even doing work on a laptop. Every day I use my coffee table. It therefore stands to reason that I don’t much accessorize my table.

When considering accessories for your coffee table, you should think practically. If your coffee tables sees as much daily use as mine does, don’t over accessorize. My coffee table is the permanent home to exactly three accessories: a book on art in Southern California, a book on Basquiat, and a photographic history of punk rock. At any given time those three items are on my coffee table; at any given time there might also be a dish or two, a couple of cds, a few remotes, and a laptop. But only those previous three books are there all the time. That’s practical accessorizing.  

My three accessories also fall in line with the other rule of coffee table accessorizing: your accessories must match the room. Whatever you choose to display on your coffee table should bare relevance to your space. For example, if you have a rustic themed living room set with candle accessories and sylvan knick-knacks about the room, you probably don’t want to display a photographic history of punk rock. It would be out of place. It would make more sense to display something on your coffee table that matched the ambiance of the room. In my case, the room itself is awash in art and music; my coffee table accessories are an extension of that.

The other consideration is that your coffee table accessories should look good together. Whatever items you choose to display should work as a unit. In my case, the books look good next to each other. One is a thick red paper back, another is a thin black and white scrap book, and the other is a small, but colorful paperback. They are all books, but visually they provide just enough contrast that the display works well together. When you decide what you want on your coffee table, put the pieces together and see how it looks. You want it to come together as a unit.

Accessorizing your coffee table is a simple task. If you think practically about the use of your coffee table, it’s not difficult to display items that work naturally within the room. Try some different items out for size. When you find a few that look good together, stick to them. And remember that accessories aren’t permanent. Unlike wall colors or furniture itself, accessories are the one piece of home decorating that you can change them as often as you like. When you think of it that way, you realize that accessorizing your coffee table is hardly a task at all.

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