When decorating a living room, you can be hard-pressed once you have your essentials to find furniture that “fits” the space. Truly, what goes with a beige couch? The answer is simple: don’t match your existing living room furniture, but to enhance it with small, bold accents. An accent table is one of many ways to spice up your living room, and an incredibly functional one at that. They provide surface area, storage, and a lot of design in a tiny package that is easy to swap in or out to reinvent your room.
Let’s talk about what you’re working with when going about choosing a new accent table. Keep your living room essentials (the couch, armchairs, television, bookcases, etc) fairly neutral and let smaller pieces do the talking. The neutral colors essentially become the backdrop that brighter, bolder colors can shine on top of. You’re freer to experiment with style and color with an accent table. You wouldn’t want an experimental bright green couch unless you knew exactly how it fits and sits, but a small bright green table doesn’t have to fit your expectations entirely in order to be a snazzy addition.
The best part about dealing with accents for your living room is that risk is low. This type of furniture is cheaper, more portable, and able to be switched around on a whim. You can find a decent accent table at a garage sale, flea market, or the infinite shopfront of the internet. Compromising is a thing of the past. Do you want a sea blue ottoman to match your cushions? You can make it happen, and then change all of it out a few months later when you realize you actually prefer red.
When choosing a new piece for your living room, go for the unexpected rather than a boring, safe choice. A good accent table doesn’t have to be primarily a table at all, or even look the part. Stools, benches, and ottomans all make good accents and provide surfaces to set your things on without being traditional tables. Some can even be used as footrests to better recline with. Accents do a lot of design heavy-lifting in such a small package that you don’t want to waste this opportunity by settling for a beige cube (unless, of course, a beige cube is exactly what your living room is missing to tie the room together).
No room for new furniture in your living space? No problem! Accent tables tend to be much smaller than coffee tables, perfect for smaller living rooms and tight corners. Adding a piece this size can add interest to the space without making it feel more crowded. It’s a good replacement for a table surface when you simply don’t have the room for something bigger. You can even double up on storage if your table has drawers or shelves to keep clutter out of your living room – a perk I always try to consider when adding new furniture to the home.
Finally, an accent table is a great way to bring a sense of “you” into the room. When choosing furniture for a living room, practicality tends to win out. Your couch size and shape depends on how many people are going to sit on it; your entertainment center must be able to fit your TV and its accompanying gadgets; the bookshelves are the height you need to fill your collection, and so on. Whatever furniture you keep in this space, it serves a specific function that doesn’t leave much room for experimentation (unless you’re willing to shell out for really unique pieces.) An accent isn’t like that. It’s only there because you want it to be… so it can look however you’d like it to!
Accent tables may be small, but their impact in your living room’s look can be huge. You just have to find the right one that fits your space.
