Are you wondering why your coffee table styling looks weird? You’ve probably looked at countless pictures, maybe even read some tips or looked at a Youtube video and still your coffee table styling is missing something. But what? Here are my thoughts on why your coffee table styling looks weird, still.
What’s your interior style strategy
The cornerstone of every space is a clear interior design/style strategy. What is an interior style strategy? It’s being crystal clear on what your interior style goal is and what your colour scheme is? Styling your coffee table is not simply about placing objects on the coffee table.
It’s about placing the right objects in cohesion. Objects that fit with your interior style and colour scheme. Objects that work with the entire space. From a colour, texture, and shape perspective. Basically your coffee table is not an island. It’s part of a whole and putting three random pieces (below) on it because you heard that collections work best in odd numbers is not enough.
What does the space need?
How you style your coffee table is directly correlated to what the space needs. Once you have put in the focal pieces such a sofa and/or armchairs and some accessories or décor such as cushions, art, throw and rug, you need to take a step back and ask yourself what’s missing.
For example, if you’ve chosen a Hamptons interior style but haven’t added a floral pattern anywhere, either in your cushions or art, then maybe the objects on your coffee table take a floral motif.
Balancing the pieces on your coffee table
I think the core interior design element that is often missing in coffee table styling and other styling such as console table or bookshelf, is balance. That is balance in shape, size, texture, material and colour.
For example in the coffee table below the items have different heights and widths. There isn’t a repetition of the green colour for that object to make sense. There is too much glass. Because the coffee table has a glass table top you don’t need more glass in the cloche. The pieces are too far from each, other they don’t look like a cohesive collection. And the coastal motif is carried through, there is just one coral thing.
Getting it right
While you may want your coffee table to look like something you’ve seen in a magazine or online somewhere the absolute easiest way of getting it right is to keep it simple.
For example, choose three items of a similar size, shape, height and width, in your interior style goal and place them on a tray on your coffee table. They could even be the same object. For example, three vases with different flowers in them. Or consider the less is more idea and just do two items like what I did in this project below, a tray and interesting sculpture.
Interior design and interior styling is a skill and talent, that takes years of experience to perfect. For my clients, styling the coffee table is the last thing I do and often takes a long time to curate and find the right pieces. To get styling right in your home just keep it simple. Good luck.
