A table is a furniture unit which is seen in every home used for a variety of purposes from study to dining, tables are a very popular type of furniture unit. Theoretically speaking a table is nothing but a horizontal platform with legs that support various activities in everyday work.

Since the primary function of a table can not be defined with 100% guarantee the form and shape/size of tables greatly vary. For example tables for studying/dining/coffee/in restaurants/in bedrooms/ in living rooms all have different sizes.

In living rooms two types of tables are primarily used. First are the end tables that come with a living room furniture set as part of the other furniture units like sofas and chairs and the second type is a coffee table. As the name suggests a coffee table is normally placed in the center of the "loop" formed by sofas and is used to serve eatables or drinks etc. because of this the overall volume of the coffee table is short and does not "over occupy" the living room.

On the other hand end tables are only used as fillers to occupy the small corners at the "end" of sofa units where living room ends. These kind of tables are also mostly used to keep a flowering arrangement or statues that will hide the unwanted corners of the room. The typical height of both end and coffee tables measures to be 450 mm (1 feet 6 inches approx.) This height does not obstruct the vision of the people occupying the living room.

The coffee table normally comes in a two layer design. The upper layer is used to serve coffee or other eatables and the lower layer can be used to keep magazines/newspapers.

One very creative way to break the old pattern of decorating is to use the end tables as a coffee table but in more numbers. For example instead of using a single rectangular coffee table with glass top you can use two wooden end tables and two glass+steel end tables to create an interesting pattern. Since the end tables measure shorter in demission around 450mmX450mm such type of design will not obstruct the human movement between the sofa loop.

Also the variation in top surface material will give rise to interesting material themes that can be repeated elsewhere also. Some possible shapes of such an arrangement could be

* A big square using 4 small squares end tables of different top surface finish

* 2 small square tables with 2 half round tables at both ends to form a "capsule" shape in plan.

* Two rectangular end tables to for a "L" shape.

The variations can be unlimited if done creatively. But one thing remains to explore here, what happens to the "end" space where these end tables need to be placed primarily? Of course this space is a good one to place a attention grabbing feature such as a medium height plant or even designer lampposts. The advantage of using these is they will evenly balance the visual focus away from the center tables and form a visual frame in the living room by providing good lighting at the same time.

Many more creative ideas are possible using simple tables in the living room. I hope you will find more new ways to use them in your home. I have tried to mark a few ones here

Copyright Shrinivas Vaidya