I’ve finally mastered the art of a lived-in coffee table – these are the 5 things I always include

Home decorator Ammarah Hasham is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts infusing her rental house with plenty of personality. See the rest of her articles here.

Before I became the proud owner of my rather magnificent Anthropologie waterfall coffee table, with its bone-inlay details and brass-capped feet, my coffee table history included some questionable decisions.

The one I remember most fondly has to be the pair of five-pound wooden pallets, procured from Facebook Marketplace, stacked one upon the other and declared, with total conviction, to be our ‘coffee table’. I was deep in my industrial-interiors era at the time, and part of it was due to the fact that my rented home came semi-furnished. Among its interesting offerings were a bulky black sofa and a coffee table that resembled a newly landed UFO. I despised its legs so intensely that an upgrade needed to happen with immediate effect.

Those wooden palettes felt just right. They were dirt cheap and brought that organic feel the room needed.What I hadn’t anticipated was that two wooden pallets in the middle of the living room would hold zero industrial charm whatsoever for my children, who took them instead for indoor soft play. Nor had I reckoned with the gaps between the planks, which were a constant struggle to live with. Mugs had to be placed with a certain precision, for at the slightest wrong angle the contents would shamelessly grace the carpet. I drink roughly about five cups of tea a day, and you can imagine the rest. I finally admitted defeat and bought a proper coffee table, and with it came the sheer joys of coffee table styling.

Having survived the pallet years, here are my firm opinions on what a coffee table actually needs.

1. Start with something oversized

Give me a chunky vase any day. Oversized, wonky, textured or even slightly irregular. Anything goes. Just let it be the focal point of the table. I truly believe that objects which are a little ridiculous in shape or scale often make the space far more interesting. You can leave one completely empty and it would still add visual weight.

Add a few unruly stems from your garden, and it turns into an artistic floral display. It can also help pull together colours already dotted around the room, or do the exact opposite and inject a contrasting shade that offsets the rest of the scheme. One of my favourites is this shell pot from Ferm Living from Ferm Living because of its elegant structural details.

2. Then add some coffee table books

Coffee table books are such an easy way to bring your interests and hobbies into the room where you entertain guests. Photography, interiors, gardening, art, sport or whatever you’re into, they can reveal a little of your personality in the most subtle way and, very conveniently, do half the work of starting a conversation.

My go-to styling trick is to always look underneath the dust jackets before dismissing a book. Some of my nicest hardcovers were found hidden behind the most unappealing outer sleeves. Get rid of the jackets and you’d be surprised to find some beautiful cloth-bound books.

You can use one chunky hardcover as your base to showcase a smaller object, or stack a few together to give your table a bit more dimension. Basically, use them as building blocks for your displays.

3. Give the remote control somewhere to live

Your coffee table should facilitate the life happening around it, which is why I think remote-control storage really needs to be given some thought when it comes to styling. Like it or not, the universal truth is that almost every living room has them, and at the same time almost everyone wants to hide them.

Good styling has to be practical too, and I am speaking from experience with three children. Someone always needs the remote, so pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t the solution. I use an old jewellery box to give ours a dedicated spot. It is easier to access and quite pleasant to look at and, because it is covered, no one knows what’s hiding inside.

You can use an old tin, a wooden box or even a rattan container to give yours a home. The remote stays accessible, the table looks tidier and peace is maintained.

4. Add an organic element

The aim here is to step away from making the styling look too polished or overly arranged. Adding something organic brings the texture and life to the whole arrangement. Nature has a way of softening things, so why not use it to our advantage?

It also makes the styling uniquely personal. Display your favourite flowers, a shell you brought back from Cornwall, a handcrafted bowl passed down from your grandparents, or even some dried fruits in your trinket dish. You really don’t need to think too hard here.

Those slightly imperfect natural additions make the whole table feel relaxed and lived in.

5. Leave some room for real life

This is the part I care most about. A coffee table should never become SO beautifully styled that everybody is frightened to touch it.

Leave enough empty space for the table to actually function.My children are constantly moving things around to make room for takeaways, board games or dumping their PS5 controllers on it. I know there will always be negotiations around those things, but I would never want the coffee table to become a shrine to a life nobody is actually living.

The best of coffee tables are the ones that get to witness passionate arguments over a board game. In our case, it’s Risk, with all the phony alliances and teary accusations of betrayal. I may have upgraded significantly from the pallet years, but I still want my coffee table to carry that sense of ease and fun memories gathered along the way.