The coffee table is the last piece of the puzzle that ties the room together. It may not be the driving force of your design aesthetic when you are decorating your living room, but it’s a piece of furniture without which the living space would look incomplete. For interior novices, it is a long, low table which is designed to be placed in front of (or next to) a sofa or upholstered chairs to support beverages, magazines, books, a bouquet of flowers, and other small items to be used while sitting, such as beverage coasters.

When deciding on the perfect coffee table, it’s helpful to consider the proportions and relative mass of each piece in your living room. For instance, if you have a super-leggy couch, you don’t want a super-leggy coffee table. Or if you have a sofa that’s upholstered all the way to the ground, you don’t want a super-massive coffee table. It’s a small, functional item or a statement piece that will last for several years. The ideal size of your coffee table depends on the size of your sofa. For optimal balance and function, the coffee table should be around two thirds the width of the sofa. The height should be 5–10 cm below the height of the sofa seat. To give ample room for moving around, make sure there is space around and between the sofa and the table.

Be bold experiment with non-traditional shapes and materials. There are plenty of fun designs out there that range from the tried-and-true: Mid-century design, with its modern contours and nostalgic tinge, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; to the unexpected: multi-utility nesting tables, that you can incorporate for an eclectic feel of a home designed with thought.