Coffee Table Sizing

How Large Should My Coffee Table Be?

What brings your perfect living room together? A balance of style, comfort as well as coziness should be as effortless as sitting down after work to watch your favorite series with your family or catching up with close friends. When you’re gathered and relaxed in the living room, you need a place for the remote controls, show off your favorite trinkets, a place to set your tech devices or even—let’s be honest here—set down a snack or meal to eat during your favorite movie.

A coffee table is the ultimate in functional furniture. It really does tie the entire living room together and becomes a central focal point for the eye and for useful day-to-day things, but you could accidentally pick a table that is too small, or too large. When a coffee table is too large, you lose the ability to move around your space easily or comfortably, and your living room should be both easy to move through and comfortable to be in!

• What you need: Sometimes life is hectic, and the coffee table becomes more than just the place to set the remote, our teacups, or even put our feet up at the end of the day. Some people enjoy eating by their coffee table or just use it for storage or display. Consider how you want to use the coffee table before purchasing it. Will it be the perfect finishing touch to reflect your hard work and taste in décor? Or will you be using it for comfort, casual use or storage?

• Grab your tape measure: You’ll need your trusty tape measure to grab the dimensions of your sofa before planning the right size coffee table for your living room. The size of your table is as important as the sofa and other furniture you have.

• Compare with sofa: Now that you’ve worked out exactly what sort of needs your new coffee table will be filling, it’s time to compare a few tables to the look of your sofa. You’ll want a beautiful coffee table that will fit perfectly into that space in the front of a sofa without overbearing it, covering it, or taking up all the space around it.

Keeping your new coffee table in proportion with your sofa will keep your living room easy on the eye and help with movement in and around the table. If you can’t find the right table, consider getting your new coffee table completely custom-designed, from the dimensions to wood used, right down to finishes, stains and whether or not you want it antiqued to match your furniture.

• Height: Measure your current sofa’s height. For the right feel, you’ll want your new coffee table to be roughly the same height as your sofa’s seat, or a fraction lower. Go too short with your coffee table and you may find yourself having to stoop to grab a book from the top or be bent over at an awkward angle for longer than needed during decorating or dusting. Causing back pain should not be one of the effects of your gorgeous new coffee table! On the opposite hand, too tall of a coffee table and accidentally banging your toes, knees, or even worse, knocking the table over could become a reality.

• Width: How long your new coffee table will be should depend on how long –or wide—your sofa is. For instance, Victorian loveseats tend to be much less wide than a Rococo Settee. Ideally, your newest living room table should be a little less wide, or less long, than the distance between the armrests of your sofa (if they have any). A nice, even alignment is a beautiful thing to the eye as well as the appeal of your living room.

When it comes to the star of the show in a living room, we think that the sofa is it. Its co-star, the coffee table, shouldn’t overpower or hide your sofa. A good rule to thumb is looking for a table that is two-thirds the width of your sofa.

There should be plenty of room for someone sitting on the sofa to be able to reach a remote or drink on the table, with legroom as well. The average recommendation as to how far away your table should be from the sofa is roughly twelve to eighteen inches.

• Traffic Flow: This is one detail that is very easy to forget when you’re looking for a new coffee table. The way you, your kids, your guests and family move through a space and room has a drastic impact on the energy and movement of the room. Being able to move in and out from behind the coffee table to sit or stand, and then walk past your sofa can be an issue easily lost in the day to day details. Don’t physically block entryways or paths you know will be busy with your new coffee table to prevent mishaps.

How much space you have in your living room, how much of it is taken with your sofa, and measuring it as well as comparing it to your sofa will help prevent you from having to leap like a gazelle over furniture that may be too crowded. Not to mention, your furniture is precious to you. The pieces you have or will have are obviously well-chosen for a purpose, and having a cramped sofa and coffee table situation where guests or you may have to walk over breakable items or your new furniture is not ideal.

Keep in mind the space you will be putting this new coffee table in as well. A coffee table shouldn’t protrude beyond any existing walls or float aimlessly in a wide-open space. You can define the entire living room zone with your coffee table, paired with a sofa in open spaces it can give you the visual separation needed between dining and living room. Try to avoid blocking any of your unique architectural features in your living room like windows, fireplaces, or shelving.

When you’ve carefully considered your needs and wants in a new coffee table, compared it to your sofa, grabbed the dimensions and have factored in traffic flow—you are well on your way to maing the purchase.