Sofa Table Sizing

You’ve gone through the gauntlet of emotions, research, and investigation to pick the perfect sofa for your new or newly decorated living room. It’s newly arrived and it is everything you’ve ever dreamed of. You place it carefully into the middle of your luxurious, open space and step back to soak in the feel and ambiance of your finished room.

Unfortunately, you notice it right away. Something is off. Your sofa looks a bit lonely, and perhaps a bit sparse in the middle of the room instead of how comfortable, how luxurious, or how elegant you had originally pictured it. The entire feel of your room that you worked so hard on, carefully designed and paid deep attention to is thrown off.

The coffee table is right. The art is right. The lamps and end tables are right, but it still looks oddly isolated where you’ve placed it, instead of flowing with the rest of the room.

That’s when you realize why it looks off to you, and you know exactly what will fix it! A beautiful sofa table! But you’ve no idea what size would work best with your sofa and you don’t want to go through the same struggle you did originally decorating the living room. So how do you check as well as ensure you purchase the most superb sofa table to match your impeccable sofa?

The Difference Between a Coffee Table and Sofa Table

If you don’t know the difference, a coffee table is the gorgeous table that sits in front of the couch. Your sofa table is something that will rest along the back of your couch. In a wide-open space where your sofa is the clear divider of a room, or an indicator of a section of a room, there is often the sense of emptiness when looking at the back of a sofa.

Sofa tables are almost always much taller and much more narrow than coffee tables.

A sofa table is the elegant, easy solution to add visual interest as well as appeal to the empty space and add to the home no matter the décor. They add variety, break up lines, create interest and can even allow additional activities or surfaces to be used in the living room.

But why choose a sofa table to begin with?

A sofa table has a much, much smaller footprint in a room than most consoles or credenzas. If you are living in a limited space apartment or simply dealing with a smaller sized living room, a sofa table will save your floor area while maximizing function and appeal.

The first thing you’ll need to know on your journey to finding the ideal sofa table is how tall and how wide your sofa is. Grab your tape measure if you don’t already know, and jot down the dimensions of your sofa.

Dimensions

Once you have your sofa’s measurements, you’ll be looking for a sofa table that is either the exact height as your sofa (give or take a few inches is fine) and is the width of the back of your sofa, not counting your sofa’s arms if you have any. Your sofa table will look its best if it matches the frame width of your sofa but does not go to or further than the arms of the sofa.

You want to preserve the gorgeous appeal of your room, its décor and the sofa itself, so if you accidentally purchase a sofa table longer than your couch you risk having your décor become visually unappealing.

How wide you want your new sofa table is important as well. On average, a width of at least 10 inches is a good bare minimum to ensure you have enough room to place items such as:

• Lamps
• Figurines
• Plants
• Collections
• Sculptures
• Art pieces
• Accessories

Width is also incredibly important for stability. Having a sofa table that can’t hold anything you place on it or can’t be passed by without it wobbling is not ideal for you, to say the least.

For instance, our Empire Console table would best be paired with one of our sofas that is at least 35.5 inches high or a few inches taller, and the sofa should be at least 1 foot longer for the table to fit in an appealing manner. The Empire Console table being 12 inches wide or deep means plenty of room for any items you would wish to display upon it.

Room Size

How big your room is, or how much space you must work within a room is also a factor you should take in when deciding what size sofa table to purchase. A bulky, too wide table in a small space can overcrowd, and again, too thin and you could risk having it tip over.

The size of your new sofa table should also depend on what you intend to use it for.

• If purely decorative, narrow sofa tables are a good option.
• If additional display and storage are needed, sofa tables with storage options and wide enough for those options should be looked at.
• You can create a sense of openness in a small space by using a very narrow sofa table between the back of a sofa and the wall, tricking the eye into creating more space and allowing yourself a small bit of display space.

When you have carefully measured your sofa, compared dimensions of your potential new sofa table to your sofa size, and figured out the exact means in which you wish to use your new sofa table, you should be more than ready, and assured that the purchase you are about to make will solve that sense of emptiness. You can say goodbye to that nagging sense of something being off in your otherwise flawless living room.

You’ll bring back that stunning appeal you truly wanted to your sofa, the living room, and create an unforgettable sense of unique, stylish comfort you’ve always dreamed of.