Beautify Your Coffee Table

Coffee tables are the perfect spots to reflect your style. They're little galleries just waiting for pretty objects, books, and art. But the trick, of course, is accessorizing with the right combination of things: not too much, not too little. Just right.

So I've rounded up a few good examples of coffee tables that have that just-right look, and I'll explain why they work. 

TIP 1: Vary heights. This simple wood-and-iron coffee table is handsome, but not flashy, so it can easily handle the visual interest you get from the wooden horse. One reason the horse works so well is that it has height. Repeat after me: I don't want all of my accessories to be the same size. 

TIP 2: If you have a coffee table with a bottom "shelf," go ahead and put something on it. I love this wiry basket with the blanket inside: It's cozy, unusual, and a nice textural complement to the hard edges of a table.

From Tip Junkie

TIP 3: Build on a tray. Pretty trays add a tailored look to your coffee table, and can give you just the right amount of space to accessorize because you don't want to fill the entire coffee table. 

TIp 4: When in doubt, add a plant. (Back to tip #1: Plants add height, and the mix of organic items with hardback books is just fabulous.) Orchids, succulents, a grouping (three, perhaps?) of small vases filled with flowers--they all work. And you can even use a faux plant: In Denver, one of my favorite spots for faux plants is The Lark.

From The Lennoxx

From Shelterness

From DG Style Blog 

TIP 5: When in doubt, go with books. A simple stack (or three) of nice-looking books--choose some that actually reflect your interests--topped by one unique object is a great way to accessorize. Remember the odd rule: It's generally better to have an odd number of items in a display than an even number. 

From SAS Interiors

Next week, I'll share a few of my favorite sources for distinctive and beautiful decor items you can use on your tables. Until then!

Family Room Furnishings + Some of My Favorite Sources

This great room-kitchen space belongs to a family with young kids, and we knew they would spend the majority of their time here. So when the time came to buy furniture, we paid close attention to how they live and how they wanted to use the space.

We started with a custom-size jute area rug from Synergy Floor Covering at the Denver Design District to create our "furniture area." Using rugs to designate intimate spaces within a large room is an easy and effective design trick. I like to start with where the furniture goes, place the coffee table and measure 18 inches to the sofa and/or chairs; this will give you plenty of room to walk around and sit down/get up. From the backs of the sofa and chairs, add about 6-12 inches (depending on how much space you have in the room) to see how large your rug should be. People tend to choose rugs that are too small, which makes the furniture feel like it is "floating" and not anchored to the floor.

Then we teamed up with a local upholsterer to design a pair of sofas, which we upholstered in fabric from Zoffany and Lee Jofa. The Zoffany fabric is an indoor/outdoor fabric made of Teflon; we wanted something that would be indestructible! The pillow fabric is the pop in the room. (Every room needs pop!) The chairs (from McGuire) are from the clients' former house.

I love the French bistro counter stools, which we chose because we knew they'd be great for a family with young children. 

The coffee table was the last element we needed. In design, some things come together really quickly, and other things take a while--and the coffee table falls into that latter category. We tried to find one "off the floor," but nothing quite worked, so we turned to a local woodworker who built this piece to the perfect proportion for the space.

BEFORE

 AFTER