Coffee Table Essentials

There is almost nothing I like better than styling the tables and flat surfaces around my house. It's fun to add something new from time to time, as well as "shop" your own house and move things around for a little change of pace. And the prime place for styling is the coffee table. So when Chairish approached me about writing a blog post that incorporated what I feel are "coffee table essentials," I jumped at the chance. For those of you not familiar with Chairish, it's a website where design lovers can buy and sell vintage furniture to one another with an amazingly large selection and reasonable prices.

One of the reasons the coffee table is a favorite to decorate is it's a fairly large, flat surface with lots of room for styling and secondly, (at least for me) it's one of the first things people see when they come into my home as my front door opens to a view of the living room. I love them styled many different ways, but there are some things I think are essential to completing the look. Here is my new coffee table below - completely bare and ready to be styled!

Here is what my table looked like for the last couple of months. I love my antique dough bowl and I like the contrast of the roughhewn wood against the smooth marble. To this, I also added some books. Books are probably my number one essential! Not only do they add a pop of color and something interesting for a guest to peruse and thumb through (especially if they are travel or art books), but they also elevate anything you put on top of them. On top of the books, I highlighted my vintage brass birds and a little green marble container. Both of these are one-of-a-kind items and things that I found over time. I do like there to be at least one thing on the table that is unique. It doesn't have to be vintage, but I do think it adds something store bought just doesn't. However, if that's not your thing, I would at least try to have something of special value or uniqueness that speaks of "you."

In the combo above I wanted to lighten it up for Spring and Summer, so I removed the brass items and the wood bowl, exchanging those for some silver items. I also added some natural elements, which I felt it needed since the wood is gone and all the silver is very cool. The green topiary and even the lemons add texture and a bit of nature, which I also like. I also changed out the darker books for some lighter colored ones, again lightening up the vignette. And just a little tip; if you need books but don't want to spend a fortune on "coffee table" books, go to your local library (most of them have a little re-used book store) and you can get them for a steal. I just picked ones I liked the titles of and/or the colors of the spines! And if the covers were beat up, I just threw those out.

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