How The Property Brothers Added A Touch Of Whimsy To A Living Room Side Table

One of the most used surfaces in any home has to be coffee tables and side tables, which usually provide a berth for all manner of objects — everything from stacks of magazines and cups of coffee to board games, lamps, and occasionally feet. Usually the center of any living or family room space, these tables may be a huge element that can make or break your design scheme and overall room flow, so choosing the right one is important. In one of their flawlessly-designed living rooms, Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott choose multiple rounded tables in lieu of a large coffee table, suggesting that the standard go-to rectangular tables may not always be the right solution for your seating set-up, particularly if you are tight on space. Rounded coffee tables and end tables may make a huge difference, both in visual impact as well as actual usable space around the table.

By swapping out angular tables for rounded ones, you not only gain more room and better traffic flow around them, but circles can often be a more amenable combination with the scale of the room and the other furniture you have. Round tables may also be perfect alternatives if they're placed in the middle of an oft-used traffic area and get bumped a lot. 

According to design experts, the shape of your tables should reflect the general lines of the room and what is in it. Thus, a room with more rectangular or angular furniture would mesh well with similarly lined coffee and end tables. A room with rounded furniture, arches, and more organic lines would look best with rounded or oval tables. This also applies to the general shape of the room and its arrangements. A squarish room with equal-length walls would more readily invite the shape of a circle at its center, while more rectangular spaces may look best with a long coffee table. Consider also the flow of traffic around the seating area and how you can maximize it, particularly in areas that may be a tight squeeze to get to other chairs and seating.

You can also use your coffee and end tables as a softening counterpoint if you feel the room goes too much in a hard angular direction. The more organic lines of a circular table can have a softening effect on many spaces and keep them from looking too formal and staid. Like with larger kitchen and dining tables, round tables overall have a more casual and inviting feel. 

Circular tables may also be a great idea if you have children, who will benefit from the lack of sharp, hard edges that bump and scrape. This also goes for adults maneuvering around the tables. Bethany Adams of Bethany Adams Interiors tells LivingEtc., "'If there's any issue with the size of the space at all, I will steer clients towards a round coffee table. I always say, your shins will thank you later." 

Rounder tables also work best in corners, where they often smooth out the sharp angles of a room, as above. You can also opt for a smaller coffee table than one might normally use in front of a longer sofa and augment it by using additional side tables to achieve the same amount of surface area. Keeping legs small and slender on coffee tables and end tables make the space seem larger and more open.