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To help you find the coffee table that works best with your budget and your space - whether you want to make it the focus of your room or have it play a more supporting, holding-the-remote-control kind of role - we talked to 15 interior designers about their favorites.īest overall | Best tray | Best marble | Best marble with shelving | Best (splurge) marble | Best oval marble | Best wooden with built-in storage | Best mid-century modern | Best nesting | Best round wooden | Best curvy wooden | Best rustic-style wooden | Best industrial-style | Best reclaimed-wood | Best metal drum | Best wooden drum | Best wooden pedestal | Best black lacquer-topped | Best white lacquered with shelving | Best steel | Best glass and metal | Best round glass and metal | Best wicker | Best concrete There are plenty of fun designs out there that range from the tried-and-true (mid-century design, for example, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere) to the unexpected (consider a table with undulating edges) that you can incorporate without turning your living room into a mismatched playhouse.
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And you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with nontraditional shapes and materials. Or if you have a sofa that’s upholstered all the way to the ground, you don’t want a super-massive coffee table because then everything feels too heavy,” she says. “Sometimes, if you have a super-leggy couch, you don’t want a super-leggy coffee table.
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Interior designer Nina Gotlieb points out that it’s helpful to consider the proportions and relative mass of each piece in your living room. Choosing a coffee table can feel like a daunting task, but there are actually a few simple rules for getting it right.
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