Yet, interior design teaches us that the living area should be conceived as a symphonic orchestra, whose achieved balance depends on several different instruments: each instrument plays its score, yet they all contribute to achieve the harmony of the final work.
If the sofa can be considered the director of the orchestra, the coffee table is surely one of the fundamental instruments to create a fluid, elegant symphony.
Either because it is a comfortable object or because it is a unique chance to tell something more about the personality of those who live in the house, the coffee table is an indispensable element, whose décor must be carefully designed.
You can choose an elegant, formal style or a more casual, easy-going one; you can play with symmetry or be guided by imagination. The secret to embellish a coffee table in the living room is to consider it an exhibition where decorative objects can be exchanged, removed, added. According to one’s taste, to the moment, to the season.
Well, how to decorate a coffee table?
In this guide you can find lots of suggestions and ideas for a coffee table which provides your living room with refined elegance.
How to put objects on the pieces of furniture: the law of harmonic composition
To understand how to embellish a coffee table, let’s start from this thought of the home stylist Romina Sita:
Consider the composition as a group of objects. The group helps direct the gaze towards it, as to a focal point that catches the eye instead of disorienting it towards scattered objects, put here and there, without any logical sense.
This thought is important also when defining the style and the decoration of a coffee table. According to Sita, there are 5 rules which allow the creation of a harmonic, beautiful arrangement (quote: rominasita.it).
1) Reasoning by “levels”
If you choose to use several objects, they must be put on different levels, one close to the others, but without touching each other.
2) Odd quantity
Lots of studies prove that odd quantities catch the eye more than even ones. It is therefore always better to use an odd number of objects to create your own combinations.
3) Playing with heights and shapes
The perfect way to create a dynamic combination which is not boring and which catches the eye is to play with different heights, volumes and shapes.
4) “Empty spaces”
Alternating empty spaces and full ones is fundamental for an elegant result. You are therefore advised against filling the whole table surface. If you want your eyes to focus on single groups of objects, without getting lost, it is necessary to leave some empty space between a combination of objects and the other.
5) Colours
It’s useless to remember that the harmony of colours is fundamental for different “objects” to dialogue and become a part of the same arrangement. It’s better to use few (very few) colours, in their different nuances if you like.
Decorating the coffee table: what to avoid
The first doubt about coffee table is something which concerns all surfaces in the house: what to put onto it to embellish it?
People often do not put anything on it or change it into a pocket emptier where to leave keys, papers, post, electronic devices, etc … and it’s immediately chaos.
To prevent this from occurring, please always remind:
- Not to put many objects on the table
- Not to choose objects which do not match each other and the rest of furniture
- Not to choose ornaments which are too big or too small according to the coffee table sizes
What to put on the coffee table
Here are some beautiful, original ideas to embellish the coffee table in your living room and turn it into the main element in your interior.
Diffusers: the perfect objects to decorate the coffee table
Both beautiful and functional, room diffusers are a nice answer to the question “what to put on the coffee table to embellish it”.
Irresistible fragrances which create wonderful decorative objects. To indulge yourself in the breath of faraway places or be cuddled by the beauty of decorative objects which awaken the senses, in a perfect balance of refinement and design.
Decorating the coffee table in the living room with photo frames
What about using the coffee table for preserving precious memories? Embellishing it through photo frames is an idea to show the most intimate and cosiest aspect of this furnishing object and to make it a small chest of memories, moments, special sensations.
Vases and flowers to put on the coffee table
The combination vases+flowers enhances the decorative function of the coffee table in the living room, turning it into a corner of beauty and nature. The room is therefore embellished with precious, original elements which create unusual, special combinations and become the link with the other pieces of furniture in the room.
Do you want to discover how to decorate your living room with decorative vases? Read also “Decorative vases for the living room: and the living room blossoms like a flower”
Furnishing the coffee table in the living room with pocket emptiers
Their shape is usually simple, but their decoration is original and different. The pocket emptier is surely the most functional decorative object of the ones you can use to embellish the coffee table in the living room. Using it to contain different objects immediately provides the coffee table with a better, cleaner look, since everything gets at its place and even different elements find cohesion and unity.
Original ideas for the coffee table: paperweights and decorative spheres
As simple in their primordial shapes as they are eclectic in their decorated surfaces, paperweights are an original idea for the coffee table in the living room.
These decorative objects take the beauty of glass to a new dimension dominated by the mineral world, with its wonderful shades. To embellish the coffee table by evoking landscapes shaped by wind.
The coffee table can become a trial ground which can be decorated according to one’s taste and personality. Choosing the right decorative objects to embellish it is the first step to provide the whole living room with personality and to make every other piece of furniture and accessory follow the rhythm of the same symphony.
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