A side table has a harder job than it looks. It needs to hold a lamp, a book, a glass of water, and whatever else lands on it at the end of the day, and it needs to do all of that without making the room feel cluttered or cheapened. Walnut is the wood we keep coming back to because it ages well, it works across different interior styles without trying too hard, and the grain has a warmth that painted MDF simply cannot fake.

What we were looking for here was proportion. A side table that is too tall looks awkward next to a sofa. Too small and it becomes almost decorative in the worst sense, present but useless. We also looked at how the piece sits on its legs, whether the joinery is considered, and whether it would still look good in ten years.

These are the tables that justify the floor space they take up.