Tips for Styling Your Coffee Table Like a Pro

A gorgeous coffee table makes a perfect blank canvas for decorating. But where to start? Here, we’re outlining a simple guide: Tips for Styling Your Coffee Table Like a Pro. You’ll learn our formula for creating an expertly styled, magazine-worthy vignette—one that can be customized in infinite ways to achieve a look you love.

These are our “go-to” steps and anyone can implement these ideas when it comes to styling the coffee table, to not only give it more height and volume but make it more appealing to the eye.

Step 1: Selecting your Coffee Table

The first consideration you should keep in mind when choosing a coffee table is how are you going to be using it. Is it going to be in a showcase living room, or in a family room where the kids are putting their feet on it. This will determine the type of finish you look at. How big is your room? The coffee table needs to fit the room and design style of the home. There needs to be a focus on functionality.  Do you need front-entry storage?  or maybe a lift top to do homework on. Another consideration, a lower shelf means double the styling potential, so consider how many pieces you want to display when choosing your table.

Throughout this Blog I will be posting a few of the decor items I feel are important to your decisions … Full disclosure: If you click on the links and buy any of the products, I do make a small commission on any sales. You do not pay more for the items because of this. The commission is very small and only helps with the costs of running the blog.

Step 2: Play With Scale

When you’re adding accessories to a coffee table, it’s important that they have different heights. This ensures variation and interest. Interest is really important as it allows the viewer’s eyes to move among the various objects you place on the table. We always start with the tallest item and build the vignette from there. Your tallest item could be a sculpture or a tall vase or a medium-sized vase with oversized branches.

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  Pretty Pheasant Figurines Set of 2
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  Standing Crane
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  Crowned Bird Figurines Set of 2
  More Info

Step 3: Choose Your Accessories

Consider bringing the outside in with Plants, Flowers, Seashells, etc. You should accessorize with things you love (Books, heirlooms, vases, vessels, or your Grandma’s favorite antique dish.

Shopping for antiques is fun and you often run into great coffee table finds. For added interest, you should also consider different shapes and textures like glass, shiny, or pottery. My absolute favorite go-to place for table decor is Inspire Me Home Decor. Check it out, it is definitely worth the look.

Pay Attention to the Rule of 3’s

Use accessories (or groups of accessories) that have different shapes, textures, and sizes. One of these decorating laws we call the Rule of Three and it’s much more simple than you might think. Basically, things look better in threes. That’s all there is to it! Three colors in your color scheme, three textures in your throw pillows, three frames on your wall.

Trays and Books

Trays should be considered … think of a tray as the rug of your coffee table, the heartbeat of your decor pieces. It is that thing that corrals everything together so you lose your TV remote less frequently. The place where you can put even more decorative & fun objects that aren’t even on this list but are personal to you. Heck, you could even put a book in there if you wanted to. Trays are multi-functional and are super important if you’re looking for functionalism over minimalism.

A book can act like a tray by grouping smaller objects (who doesn’t enjoy putting cute little trinkets or a candle on top of your books) but it’s also great because it can inject personality into a space and give a guest something to do and look at when they sit down. Books are inviting and totally fun – people refer to them as coffee table books for a reason 🙂 But they’re pretty rectangular and if you’re already dealing with a lot of squares, rectangles, and all-around hard edges in a space, it might be time to soften up the table styling.

Create Different Holiday and Seasonal Looks

Candle Wreaths and ornaments such as a bowl of colorful tree ornaments could be placed on your coffee table at Christmas, Easter bunnies, or bowls filled with chocolate easter eggs are a hit for Easter.  I’ve seen hand-painted Easter Eggs in a crystal bowl that was truly beautiful. You could use your table as an entertaining station for family or holiday gatherings by putting a centerpiece in the middle of the table and using it for your beverages, punch bowls, bar glasses, etc.

Seasonal changes take some thought as the seasons vary depending upon where you live. Candles with a tropical scent could be used during the summer. Textures from each season might include rustic twigs for autumn, pine cones for winter, or freshly cut wildflowers for spring.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this posting, Tips for Styling Your Coffee Table Like a Pro. Table Decor, both the living room tables and dining tables is one of my true passions when it comes to home decor so I write about it quite a bit. In closing, I’ve included 3 more examples below of what I think are great coffee table vignettes. (They is a shareable link in the upper left corner if you care to use it)

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Till next time … Joy