7th October 2024

While the kitchen is often seen as the heart of the home, for many of us, the living room is a strong contender for that title. It's the sanctuary where comfort and style come together, where conversations flow, and for moments of relaxation. The living room is the perfect space to tell the story of your home and how you live.  

Through thoughtfully chosen pieces like your sofa, side tables, and coffee tables, you can intentionally craft the narrative of your living room. Intentional design choices help create harmony and flow, making the living room both functional and beautiful. Each piece adds to the comfort, functionality, and aesthetic of the room, creating a space that reflects both your lifestyle and personal style. 

But how, in a beautifully curated home, do we ensure that the pieces we choose work seamlessly together? How, for example, do we pair our coffee table and side tables with our sofa? In this instance, it's about more than just practicality. It's about creating a cohesive, meaningful space that reflects our own personal journey and our values.

When selecting the individual pieces of furniture or the accessories that we bring into our home, we must first gather a good understanding of the space itself. This means understanding the layout of the room, how it will be used, the flow of traffic through the space and how we want the space to make us feel.  

Each piece must be intentionally chosen to complement the flow of the room. In the case of the living room, this requires us to consider the size and shape of the sofa and what would work best in the room. Do we need a large corner sofa to accommodate a growing or extended family? Do we need a modular sofa that provides us with the flexibility to reconfigure it to suit our lifestyle and to work for different occasions? Or do we need a smaller two-seater sofa that saves space and fits nicely in a distinct alcove? The choice we make should complement the room's narrative as well as work on a practical level.  

For a timeless, characterful feel, it's important to consider material choice when you pair a coffee table and side tables with your sofa. Bringing contrast into your living room is essential as it helps to create the visual interest needed for a memorable space. It also adds a much-needed sense of balance. If all the materials are too similar you risk everything blending together and feeling monotonous. So be sure to choose items with opposing characteristics, whether that be material, style, texture, colour, shape, or size.  

For a more thoughtful and intentional pairing, we recommend opting for natural, recycled or reclaimed materials for your coffee table and side tables with your sofa. Many of the pieces in our collection are consciously hand-crafted from sustainable mango wood like our Ira Travertine & Mango Wood Side Table with its fluted details and sophisticated travertine tabletop. Other pieces from our Ibo Collection are hand-carved from the wood panels reclaimed from the exterior of trucks in India and celebrate the versatility and creativity of traditional Indian craftsmanship.  

These unique and characterful pieces tell the story of a past life and add character and depth to the living room when paired with your sofa.

One of the questions we get asked the most when our customers are looking to pair a coffee table and side tables with a sofa relates to the size and proportion of the tables with respect to the sofa. Getting this right is what will promote a sense of harmony in the space so that no one piece dominates or disappears. There is a general rule of thumb no matter whether you are pairing your tables with an L-shape sofa, a 3-seater sofa or a small armchair.  

We advise that the coffee table should be roughly 5cm shorter than the height of the seat of the sofa. It should be about two-thirds the length of the sofa, and when it comes to positioning it, aim for 40-50cm away so that it is still within easy reach but allows enough space for you to walk around it unobstructed.

Side tables should be roughly 5cms shorter than the sofa's arm height. This makes it easy for you to reach and place drinks and other items on the table. Side tables can be used for various purposes, and not simply placing drinks on them. They may be home to a lamp, to your books, to personal items, to plants to a beautifully styled vignette. If the side table has additional storage like the leather sling that drapes beneath the table top of the Alera Side Table it can be used to house magazines.  

Similarly to the coffee table, the side tables must fit with the proportions of the room and with the other furniture that you have chosen. Bear in mind the visual weight of the pieces too. If you have a particularly large statement piece of furniture such as our Guddu Super Grand Sofa in Brera Linen Indigo it might be wise to pair it with something slightly more delicate that takes up less visual space such as the elegant Nakuru Iron and Glass Coffee Table or the effortlessly classic Luzon Iron and Mango Wood Display Coffee Table.

When you pair your coffee table and side tables with your sofa, you also need to think about the shape and functionality of the furniture pieces to help create visual balance in the room. Curved furniture is particularly popular now and a more structured sofa paired with a curved coffee table can be very complimentary. The comfort of soft, sweeping curves tends to be softer on the eye, and circular shapes can temper the angularity of a room and contrast with clean, geometric lines.  

When selecting coffee tables, side tables, and sofas, it’s also essential to consider how your living room might evolve over time. Life changes — whether it’s an expanding family, new hobbies, or even a shift in your aesthetic preferences — can impact how you use your space. Opting for modular or multifunctional furniture allows for flexibility as your needs change.  

A modular sofa that can be reconfigured for different occasions or nesting side tables like our Maba Nesting Side Tables set that can be tucked away or spread out when needed are examples of practical, future-proof furniture choices. Investing in timeless designs and materials will ensure that your living room remains both functional and stylish, regardless of how your life or taste might evolve over the years.

Every element in your room contributes to the overall narrative of your home. The act of pairing your coffee table and side tables with your sofa is about so much more than simply filling a space. Rather you are making intentional design choices that reflect the story of your home and the people who live within it. 

By mixing and matching textures, tones, materials, sizes and shapes you can create a layered, lived-in feel that evolves with your home. Choose a sofa and tables that are not only aesthetically pleasing but that help to create a cohesive and intentional space built on a foundation of timeless design for a sustainably styled home.