The middle of a living room is prime real estate and a bad coffee table wastes it entirely. Too small and the sofa looks stranded. Too large and you’re stepping around it for the rest of your life. The wrong material and it dates the room faster than almost anything else. We’ve thought about this more than is probably reasonable.

What we look for is a table that earns its position visually and practically. Something with enough surface to be useful, the right height so that setting down a drink doesn’t feel like a stretch, and a base that adds something to the room rather than just occupying space beneath a top. We care about proportion. We care about how it reads from the sofa and from the doorway.

The tables in this collection work across different room sizes and different tastes. Some have storage. Some are all about the material. All of them justify the spot they’re asking for.