Your Coffee Table Is Begging For THIS Designer Hack

OK, decorating a coffee table is an art form. Yes, that is true. But there is a foolproof process. And if you know that process, you can get it right every single time. I've decorated hundreds, honestly, maybe even thousands of coffee tables in all of my years as a designer. So I'm going to show you exactly what you need to decorate your coffee table like a pro. But I'm also going to show you the one trick that most people don't even know about that will take your coffee table styling to the next level. Now, what exactly is the best shape and size for a coffee table? That is often the very first question that I get. And the answer is whatever fits your house best. I mean, it could be round. It could be square. It could be rectangle. It could be multilayer. Really, the coffee table shape and size doesn't matter. What matters is how you style it. So let's get to the first step. Now, the very first thing we have to do before we start decorating is to clear everything away and start with a blank slate. This kind of helps you clear the clutter, get your mind right. So here we go. OK, the next essential thing we have to do is figure out what our hero piece is going to be. So the hero of our vignette is the statement piece that will act as the focal point and the foundation for the overall display. Hence this giant plant. It should be something that you love. And it really is going to set the tone for the entire like personality of the vignette. It's going to anchor the display. So it needs to have like substantial scale and it needs to relate to other items in the room. So not just what's happening on your coffee table. It also needs to relate to decorative accessories and color palette and all of the other elements in the room. That's why I chose this piece right here. So let me add it to the table. And I want to show you just how much of an impact this hero piece makes. Now that this is placed and we don't have to actually place this right now, you could just make the decision of what it's going to be. But I'm just going to set it there so we can see it. Now we need to go on to step number three, and that is choosing and placing our grounding pieces. So your grounding pieces are the first layer of items on your coffee table that kind of corral the other decorative pieces and also give different heights of surfaces. So that could be trays. It could be decorative boxes. It could be risers like stone risers or a stack of books. All of those would be considered grounding pieces. So I'm going to build out my cocktail table vignette, starting with my grounding pieces, which is going to be a stack of books. So here's my giant stack of books. I love using books as grounding pieces. Sometimes I get ugly comments on YouTube that we're not supposed to decorate with books, but I mean, give me a break. First of all, we can do whatever we want. It's our house. And if we want to decorate with books, we can. And second of all, they're just really great to use as risers and as grounding pieces on a cocktail table or on really any surface in your house. So no shame in that. So I've got the books there. I don't know if that's exactly where I'm going to keep them, but I also wanted to show you this. This is also a grounding piece. This is a stone riser. And what I love about this piece is that it speaks to the berries that are in my arrangement. Now, I will say it's literally snowing outside right now. So I don't have like a live, beautiful, fresh flower arrangement that I'm putting on this cocktail table. So these are leftover from my holiday decor and they're beautiful. They have a really beautiful burgundy red berry that actually speaks to the throw blanket and some of the decorative throw pillows that I have in this room. And I'm going to use it as the hero piece on the table. So I've got this as a grounding piece and I've got a little stone riser. I may add another one. And now I need to think about the composition. OK, as we add layers of decorative accessories, we may move some things around. But just initially, when you're thinking about cocktail table styling, you need to think about creating triangles, triangles from above, because when you're looking down on a table, you actually see the shape that the items make. So you're looking at it, you know, like this. But also, if you're farther away from the cocktail table, you're actually looking at it this direction. So you want to make sure that you're creating varying heights and creating those triangles and rhythm within the items and the way that you style them. So I'm looking overhead right now. I've got the coffee table books here and then I've got this arrangement here and then I've got the riser kind of right there. OK, now the next thing that we need to add in is our supporting pieces. So these are the items that add personality and texture and honestly create that whole visual storytelling vibe on our coffee tables. These items need to vary in scale and they need to vary in material. Now, if you have got a glass tabletop, I don't have one right here, but I have one on that side of the room. You also need to think about the items that are going to be below. Like if you have a second shelf down below, you want to make sure that you're creating triangles there and that you're intersecting and overlapping your items for a really beautiful visual display. OK, I've gathered my supporting pieces or some of them. So I've got a really beautiful marble bowl. It's a great scale. We're going to talk about shapes in just a second. I've got a little metal candle snuffer and the Daphne oil candle from my collection. I absolutely love adding this to a vignette. It's great because it's an oil candle, so it burns clean. It just looks pretty regardless if it's lit or not. And then I've got a couple of boxes. I've got a leather box. I've got a wooden box. I don't know which one I'm going to use. Now, let's talk really quickly about shapes, because we want to make sure we have a variation in shapes in the items that we're using to style our coffee tables. If we put all square edge items on the table, it's not going to look great. Same thing if we have all round objects. It's just going to feel like kind of flat. We really want to create that tension by including varying sizes and shapes of items and materials. Now, before I let you in on the one decorating tip that you absolutely must know to make sure your coffee table comes together perfectly, I want to share my formula for creating compelling vignettes. And it is this. Consider your interest, your scale, your rhythm, your balance and your movement. I know that sounds like a symphony, but I want to break it down really fast to make sure you understand what to include when you're decorating. So first interest, really, what does that even mean? And that means that your objects are interesting to you. Like this could vary from house to house and person to person. Maybe you do not find a beautiful antique leather box interesting, but I find it very interesting. And it creates a compelling story for my house because it shows anybody that comes into the room what I'm interested in and what I think is beautiful. Second scale, as you can see on this coffee table, we have got all different sized items. We've got large and small. We've got different shapes like we talked about earlier. And the way that we arrange them is going to make them visually appealing. We really want to make sure that everything isn't the exact same size. It just creates a flat look. Next, rhythm. And that is how the items are displayed, how they speak to each other. And if we're creating those triangles visually and if we also have a color that is woven through the items. And for this table vignette, it's actually this really beautiful burgundy color because it shows up here on the berries and on the riser in this marble bowl. And it speaks to what else is going on in the space. Balance is the next thing we need to consider. And that really is, does it feel collectively beautiful and balanced? Does it look from all different angles like it makes sense and we don't have something really heavy on one side that is not balanced out on the other side? Now, this hero piece with the berries, it's large and it's kind of wild and unruly, which I love, but it's balanced out by the presence of the stack of books and the marble bowl. OK, so that's really something you need to consider. And it's something that I honestly see a lot of people just forget about is thinking about how to create a compelling vignette that feels really balanced. The last thing is movement. So movement means that when you look at a vignette, does your eye move from one item to the next item to the next item? And does it feel like it makes sense? Does your eye want to travel through the items and look at everything and take it all in and appreciate the way that it's styled? Now, just for the purpose of this video, I'm actually going to go with the leather box because I just think it's so cute. So I'm going to stick this right here. OK, and I've got everything laid out in a way that I think is really beautiful and visually appealing. I've got triangles, I've got height, I've got layers. And the last thing that I want to do after I've laid everything out is really think about, do I need to edit something? So if I were to put this other box that I grabbed, because I grabbed both of the boxes and I were to put both of those boxes there and I were to step back and really think about it and look at that and consider the composition, I would say that I would need to edit out one of the boxes, A, because they're almost the exact same size. OK, even though one's leather, one's wood, I just feel like it's kind of too much repetition. So I would edit that box out and I would just put one there. And to me, that just creates composition that looks a lot more pleasing to the eye. Editing is really a design superpower. I think a lot of times when we're decorating, we don't think about editing because we get it all done and we're like, Oh, it's done. Really? You need to consider it because sometimes taking something away means that you can appreciate what is there so much more. OK, now for the piece de resistance. My number one foolproof tip is to make sure that whatever you do, you have the right mix of materials. So the material mix rule is that you make sure you have at least one item that represents each of the six material categories. So that stone, wood or leather, metal, glass, some type of pottery or ceramic piece and something organic like a plant or flowers or berries or branches or something like that. Trust me, this is the holy grail of styling. And if you only do one thing from this video, want to upgrade your coffee table, this is the rule to live by. Now, let's double check that I have all the categories on my coffee table. Do I have something organic? Yes. Even though they're faux. Do I have something stone? Yes. The bowl and the riser. I've got this really beautiful pottery piece down here that adds that layer of texture. I've got glass in the Daphne oil candle. I've got the metal snuffer and then I've got the leather box. So it could have been leather or wood. I've got all of the materials represented and it creates such a beautiful vignette. I just want to say that one of the easiest and most personalized way to add soul and character to your rooms is through the way that you style and group your decorative accessories. The beauty about creating vignettes and taking the time to decorate surfaces like our coffee tables is that we get to include items that are personal to us and that represent what we love and the things that are most important to us. So my homework for you is to use all of the tips that you've learned in today's video and try it out for yourself. Take a Saturday afternoon. Restyle your coffee table. Use all of the six materials. Think about the way that the items are displayed. Make sure that you've got varying heights and levels. I promise you can create something really, really beautiful. It's not hard. Just follow my lead. Now, if you want some more styling ideas on how you can create really beautiful, decorative moments in your home, I want you to meet me in this next video because I have tons more tips for you. I'll see you there.