I’m doing decorating and I really don’t want a coffee table. What can I use?
Nope. We have a rectangular ottoman. And a wooden tray to sit on it if we want to set drinks there. Anything else can just be set down on it without a tray. TV remotes. A throw blanket. Laundry basket. The newspaper. Books. My feet.
We had a coffee table but moved it to the basement when my dd was born so she could roll around on a blanket on the carpet. It’s been there ever since and she’s almost 10! Honestly, they just get in the way. I would just use some side tables on the side of the couch or even a “sofa table” which is a long rectangular table (higher than a coffee table) which goes behind the couch to put things on.
We have nesting tables.
You can use a large ottoman with a tray. Or two or three smaller square tables or ottomans.
I use several small, perhaps 12" square, little tables that I move around to where we’re sitting for drinks. An end table between two chairs holds the remotes and odds and ends. I’ve used a sofa table behind the sofa quite successfully. When I remodel I’m going to do that again.
I have a large rectangle ottoman that opens with storage inside. I keep blankets, pillows and the tray we use if we want to put drinks on top. We also use it for extra seating! LOVE it! Got it 5 years ago when my daughter was born, it’s been great, I don’t think I’ll ever have a traditional coffee table again!
I’d like a chest someday, in a bigger house.
Currently I have barstools, of all things, as side tables.
No, our living room is way too small for a coffee table. I can sit in the chair against one wall and my daughter on the couch against the other with the ottoman in between and we both can have our feet on it… I have a tray, like others have said, that sits on the ottoman. And a small side table.
I have a coffee table, I like them. I also like to use night stands with drawers as side tables in the living room. More storage space and with kids it seems like there is never enough storage space.
Yes and I hate it. It doesn’t fit and I would love to have the space instead.
Yes, but I’d prefer the ottoman with storage in it.
we use a wooden box that my father made originally as a toy box…the boys out grew it - so we used it as a blanket box and coffee table.
You don’t have to have a coffee table. One of my daughters uses an old trunk she found at a thrift store, and I think it looks good. I use end tables instead - one of them is an old school desk. The other is a “tea table” - an option a little bit taller, about the height of the desk. Our seventeen-month-old Lab thinks coffee tables are misnamed - they should be called “puppy tables.” They’re just the right height for her to snack from!
You can do whatever you want. What can you use for what? Storage? Placing drinks? We had a coffee table when the kids were learning to walk because it gave them something to pull up on. But then as they became more active, it just got in the way, so we got rid of it. It was just a magnet for clutter.
I have a coffee table and can’t imagine not having one. I know people who don’t and I feel awkward when sitting on their sofa’s and I have no place to set my drink!
We used to have one and then we had children. We had to store it in the basement.
We don’t have a coffee table. Our living room is long and narrow, so having one would mean no floor space between the seating and the television.
We have end tables - one at either end of the couch, and one of them is also accessible from the rocking chair.
When we have more company than table-space, we have wood ‘tv trays’ that can come out.
We do, and I really like it, but it hasn’t seen a cup of coffee in all its born days. It’s the “whose papers are these and why are they sprawled all over the pretty coffee table” table.
Does anyone actually put coffee on their coffee tables, ever?
If you allow no eating/drinking in your living room (it really saves on messes, crumbs and spills) you don’t really need one.
If you use some sort of nesting end tables, you can easily pull one out for an occasional board game or what ever you need it for.