What's on your coffee table?

[Debbi in Texas]

I need help decorating. Serious help. I always draw a blank about how to decorate the coffee table,

 

So, inspire me.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I don't think that you want to decorate with the Japanese textbook and file folders of visuals for language teaching that I have on my coffee table.  Seriously.  My coffee table is a catch-all for what we have been working on recently and not a decorating statement. 

[Carrie12345]

Random Legos, paper scraps, a cat brush, a single die, pieces of a marble run, and a broken pencil.

 

You're welcome. lol

[foxbridgeacademy]

Xbox. DH likes the TV low so the only thing that fit under it to hold the Xbox was my very nice coffee table. It was supposed to be temporary until he built something that fit..... temporary must mean in a year or two.  If it were where it was supposed to be I'd put a pretty vintage yellow porcelain bowl on it that I picked up at a garage sale for a dollar.  That would probably sit on a reed or bamboo mat (green or earth tones) so as not to scratch the table.  I'm pretty simplistic in my style.  

[Spryte]

I just straightened so the Lego creations, crayons, and marble runs are gone for the next twenty minutes or so. :D

 

Two coasters, with a cappuccino on one.

 

I prefer empty spaces to filling every flat space. Probably not much help.

[Pawz4me]

A couple of magazines, a box of tissues and the TV remote. There was a dish garden there but it has warmed up enough that I put it outside to get more sun.

[Miss Tick]

Nothing, if at all possible. We need some clear surfaces in our lives. I will let the Lego/book forty creations stay for a while, but if they haven't been touched in 48 hours then they have to go.

 

Perhaps not very decorate-y, though.

[bolt.]

Right now: a portable tv, various books, sticky notes, pens,etc. The Kleenex box has a slightly decorative feel, I guess!

 

When I spiff things up, the coffee table is usually blank, or has a plant or flowers in the middle. (Unless it has a tray of snacks or something instead.)

[creekland]

A larger egg box with 6 newly obtained Buff Orpington chicks in it...

 

If you want to look for chicks, I got mine at Agway yesterday.  :lol:

 

This is only a seasonal display.  Time will tell what is there if you ask a month from now.  :coolgleamA:

 

ps  Before the chicks came we had a Wide World game on there - and we moved the chicks temporarily yesterday evening to play the game.  They just moved back to keep them more out of "housecat" range.

 

pps If we leave on vacation and I want the house to pretend to look good for our farm sitter, I'll leave an I Spy book or two and the latest editions of a couple of magazines there.

[DesertBlossom]

Years ago my 8yo scratched his name into the coffee table. Does that count?

[historically accurate]

Random crap. That's what on my coffee table. 

 

[Kareni]

A collection of candles and oil lamps

A blood pressure cuff (recently diagnosed with elevated blood pressure)

A selection of books

A tissue box

Dust

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Rebel Yell]

I need help decorating. Serious help. I always draw a blank about how to decorate the coffee table,

 

So, inspire me.

Sorry, I'm not going to be much help. We have an eat-in kitchen and a living room, plus 3BR and 2bathrooms. No extra space for purely decorative displays other than on the walls. Oh and in our China cabinet, since it was forced on us (Auntie passed away, no one wanted it but none could bear to donate it) since we have no china.

 

I also no longer have room for a coffee table, but when it was there, it had a large placemat (table runner could work too) for some color, a basket for the remotes, and a set of coasters. Not a super-Pinterest display, but not ugly, and practical.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Rebel Yell

[AK_Mom4]

A huge number of some sort of gaming figurines and an expensive paint set here!

 

DD15 has been helping DS21 get his new miniatures painted (Warhammer 40K stuff), so every non-eating surface is covered with partially painted figures and the table in the living room is currently The Paint Shop.

[EKS]

Usually a combination of Xbox paraphernalia and math tutoring materials (whiteboard, markers, textbook, notes, etc).

 

Use ^^^ as an example of what not to put on the coffee table.

[Guest]

I don't have a coffee table, but if I did I'm a fan of keeping them fairly uncluttered. A nice tray and a few books on top of it are about as far as I'd decorate on your average coffee table in a working, active living room with kids.

[Another Lynn]

A chess set (portable, tournament-style, not decorative) and a chess clock.

[SparklyUnicorn]

currently: books, Legos, some sort of robot project, remotes, script for a play, various writing implements, and a cup of coffee

 

 

[Selkie]

A big pile of books and magazines.

[Alice]

Nothing. During school the kids use it for working but I make them put away everything at the end of the day. 

[Stacia]

Nothing

[amy g.]

Mine is covered in legos and a Christmas tablecloth because the kids said it would mess up their creations if I changed it out.

[Matryoshka]

A not-stacked mess of disorganized papers and books, pencil holders that I have actually recently gone through and are overstuffed, but at least with working writing implements, coasters, a candle (I could pretend it was for decoration, but it's one my kid bought for her room that never made it upstairs ), rubber cement, a cat brush and a pet hair removal thingy. Somewhere underneath this mess is a table, I can tell because the stuff isn't on the floor. ;) There might be more, but I would have to do an archaeological excavation to find out.

[KatieJ]

One has a photo album I scrapbooked of a trip my DH took to Germany ( work) and the other one had laundry on it which I just put away. We keep that one clear for laundry.

[Jean in Newcastle]

You ladies are making me feel a lot better about my coffee table!  See, dh, I am not alone in having a messy coffee table! 

[Matryoshka]

You ladies are making me feel a lot better about my coffee table! See, dh, I am not alone in having a messy coffee table!

Glad to be of help. :D

[jrn]

cat bed. he likes being the center of attention.

[SparklyUnicorn]

You ladies are making me feel a lot better about my coffee table!  See, dh, I am not alone in having a messy coffee table! 

 

haha...nope, not alone

 

my list is uncharacteristically short...I cleared it off completely less than a week ago :glare:

[trulycrabby]

My cat and an IBC cream soda.

 

Oh, there's also an engraved copper plate from Turkey (the cat is sitting in it). :ack2:

Edited April 1, 2017 by trulycrabby

[MaryMak07]

We got rid of our coffee table with small kids and have a black ottoman (no corners!) in its place (with toys inside!). Sitting on top of it currently are two books, a magazine, and a bag of trail mix.

[Ali in OR]

My preference is totally clear (except for maybe my feet as that is where they are right now as I type). Five days a week ours is covered with homeschool materials. I put those away Friday night or Saturday morning and then use it for piles of laundry as I fold. After those are put away, I have a clear coffee table for a day or two.

[JudoMom]

I have a serving tray.  It used to have glass in it, and you could change out what was under the glass.  I say used to because one of my sons stepped on it and broke the glass.  While it was on the coffee table.  

Anyway, it's still on there, but not as pretty as it used to be.  But that doesn't matter because it currently has 4 ESV Study Bibles stacked in it.

*sigh*

[Storygirl]

My coffee table has two levels. The top is covered mostly with clutter right now -- some books, random papers, an envelope from a card my son got in the mail, a pen, a box of Tums, the remote, a plastic bucket with a few popcorn kernals rolling around in the bottom, etc. It also has some of the decorations that are meant to be there (more on that in a minute, since that is what the OP really wants to know). The bottom shelf has a pile of coffee table books and two matching ceramic pots, one larger than the other. Plus some empty candy wrappers.

 

The actual decorations for the top of the table are only there because I created a display for the table the last time we moved and had our house on the market. I have a wooden tray, on top of which sit three amber vases (two round ones that are identical except for size, plus a tall cylindrical one), a small decorative wooden pot that is made of dark wood with some dark red accents painted on, plus a tall carved dark wooden piece like a candlestick except it doesn't hold a candle.

 

When I created the display, I already owned the tray, and I went to Hobby Lobby to look for items to put on it. Home Goods also carries a lot of decorative items like that. At the store, I collected items I thought might work and stood them together on a shelf to see how they looked together. It took me some time to switch items in and out until I had a grouping that I liked.

 

In general, groupings of items should be an odd number, so 3, 5, or 7. I find that having a tray under my decorative items grounds them and makes them look more like a group. I also makes it easier to slide them to the side if I want to use the top of the table for something else.

 

When I set up the coffee table to look nice, I have the tray sitting at an angle on one side of the table, and on the other half I stack a couple of the coffee table books that I own. The bottom shelf will have the two pots and the rest of the books in a stack (when our house was on the market, our stager had us leave the bottom shelf completely empty).

 

Hope that helps!

[heartlikealion]

Usually covered in whatever dd has been coloring. I actually like the look of a pretty clear coffee table. Maybe just a remote control caddy or coasters or something small.

Edited April 1, 2017 by heartlikealion

[Storygirl]

duplicate post

Edited April 1, 2017 by Storygirl

[regentrude]

A book, my laptop, some college mail, some pages with astronomy problems.

I don't "decorate" tables; I use them. I don't get the idea behind decorative furniture; if the furniture is not needed for a purpose, it is better to get rid of it and make more room.

Edited April 1, 2017 by regentrude

[foxbridgeacademy]

Years ago my 8yo scratched his name into the coffee table. Does that count?

lol, we have a big long scratch on mine (that I mostly buffed out) from sliding the dry erase board to each other while playing our own version of pictionary.

[Pegs]

Lego, some of DS' school books, some of my school books, a scarf, a tin whistle.

[Garga]

My living room is too small for a coffee table.   :(  I love coffee tables.  It's such a pain not to have somewhere to put something when I'm sitting down, but if we had a coffee table we wouldn't be able to walk through our tiny room.

 

If I had one and if it was really up to me, then I'd have some sort of wooden tray to hold a couple of magazines and books.  

 

Or I'd put out a bowl of brightly colored yarn balls.  Just because I like color and yarn is soft and pretty.  And you can pick up a yarn ball and toss it at someone if you need to--like a cat scratching the chair instead of the scratching post, or a boy who is making goofy jokes and trying to get a rise out of mom.   :)

Edited April 1, 2017 by Garga

[TravelingChris]

Books, newspapers, magazines and ads.

[Mergath]

We have a giant ottoman rather than a coffee table. At the moment it has on it has a teal tray, four books, my phone, and dh's reading glasses. Normally it also has a couple of tv remotes too, but I have no idea where dd left them after her screen time this morning. It may occasionally also hold a sleeping cat or two.

[katilac]

I don't have a coffee table. If I did, it would be covered in notebooks, shopping bags, and other random crap just like every other flat surface in my house. 

[forty-two]

In its "clean" state, achieved at least once each day during clean-up time, ours has water bottles and a few cloth diapers (which we use as all-purpose towels, good for wiping hands/faces/surfaces/floors). Right now it also has:

*a snack bowl

*a pair of socks

*an old keyboard the kids play with

*one of my books

*a songbook for devotions

*a DVD case (for the DVD in the player)

*a small velvet sack with "jewels" inside

*a wristband

*a rough draft of dd10's b-day invites

*a rolled-up piece of paper

 

That's pretty typical. It's functions as an all-purpose work/play space in living room; we pick it up each evening and each day it gets cluttered up again. Anything "pretty" would get moved or knocked down or hidden - it's a working space for us.

[ScoutTN]

Lots of books, two magazines, legos, a chess board, a pencil, a nerf gun and some dog hair and dust.

[lavender's green]

Main coffee table has a pair of kitchen tongs and an audiobook set on it. The side table next to me is a mess of parenting books and homeschooling catalogues, toys and wine glasses. The other has a blanket and a cat.

 

But a few years ago, when I had only one kid and he was very good about not messing with my decorations, we had a pretty antique-ish bowl on the coffee table, and I'd occasionally float roses from the garden in it. More recently, after the middle child toddler got less grabby but before the baby started standing (or, about two weeks), I had a silver tray with lots of candles arranged on it. The side table once had nice lamps and picture frames. The tables all have a lower shelf and I kept interesting coffee table books there, about subjects we were interested in, and we actually used them regularly.

[The Girls' Mom]

Right now? A partially worked jigsaw puzzle.  When I want it to actually look nice, I have really old, huge, Webster's dictionary that I put on it.  (But since we often use our coffee table for various things, the dictionary usually lives on the shelf UNDER the table, along with a zillion other things.)

[TechWife]

I don't have a coffee table. There, that was easy. 

 

 

[LucyStoner]

What is this thing called "coffee table?"  :lol:

 

I haven't lived in a place large enough for a coffee table in basically forever.  

 

We installed a shelf at coffee table height between our couch and chair so we'd have a spot to perch a mug or two while sitting on the couch.  I have a red ceramic vase and a picture of the kids there.  

 

I have a tray on top of a little rolling cabinet I use as an end table and the question there is "what isn't on the end table?" It's a bit of a catch-all.  

[wintermom]

I don't think that you want to decorate with the Japanese textbook and file folders of visuals for language teaching that I have on my coffee table.  Seriously.  My coffee table is a catch-all for what we have been working on recently and not a decorating statement. 

 

Mine has something Japanese on it as well! It's a Japanese runner/place mat from our former Japanese exchange student. It's a little hard to see under the books, binder, playing cards and electronic devices, though. ;)

[Debbi in Texas]

Thanks everyone for your wonderful suggestions .LOL.

 

This has been fun.