Coffee Table—Why Shopping For One Is So Difficult

Unless you just don’t care about your furnishings or how they affect the overall décor of your home, then you are going to have to spend some time thinking about how to find the most stylish coffee table for your home. This is actually a lot harder than you may think and if you have already been shopping on the web then you have seen that the range of choices is limitless. Believe it or not, it is possible to go out and buy what you thought to be a magnificent coffee table only to find out once you get home that it simply does not belong in your living room. So, what went wrong?

One of the first decisions you are going to need to make when shopping for coffee tables is the basic shape of the top. Do you want a round, rectangular, square, or elliptical top? Does it really matter or can you choose any shape and it be perfect or is there some logic to making this decision?

Believe it or not, some shapes on a stylish coffee table may not be so trendy when you get it to your home. For instance, an elliptical top on a contemporary coffee table is just that—contemporary. If you have a rustic or traditional interior design scheme in your home and plop an elliptical coffee table down in the middle of your living room, it is going to seem out-of-place and in stark contrast to the surroundings.

Now if you are interested in a square, round, or rectangular table—then you need to take both the décor and the overall size of the room into account. Round premium coffee tables, by definition, have “cut corners”. It is common in rooms with limited space to opt for round end tables and stylish coffee tables. This cuts down on the overall square footage taken up by the table and provides more space to maneuver in a living room with limited area.

When you know the shape of the coffee table top, the next question is the size of the piece. One of the things that can really make the living room décor seem awkward is furniture that is not suited for the space. When stylish coffee tables are over-sized, not only is the usable space within a room more limited, it can dwarf surrounding pieces of furniture—it can seem like you are trying to shove a dining room table into a space ill-suited for that purpose. Even for a grand coffee table, it should never be more than two-thirds as long as the sofa.

Once you know the size and basic shape of the table you need, it is time to hop online to start shopping for the one perfectly suited to your home décor. Online merchants tend to carry a wider selection of stylish coffee tables at discount prices when compared to traditional furniture stores thanks to their low overhead.