Living Room Tables

How to choose living room tables

The tables in a living room do the practical work of making the space liveable. The coffee table holds the remote, the mug, the magazine you're not reading. The side table holds the lamp and somewhere to put your drink down without leaning. The console table fills the wall behind the sofa or in the hallway. Picked well they work invisibly; picked badly they crowd the room and you walk into them.

Coffee table sizing follows the sofa. Two-thirds the length of the sofa works in almost every room; longer reads dominant, shorter reads lost. Leave 30 to 45cm of clear space between the sofa edge and the table edge for circulation and leg room. Height: 5cm lower than the seat height of the sofa is the comfortable rule. Most British sofas sit at 45cm, so a 40cm coffee table is the safe spec.

Side tables are bought for height, not aesthetic. The top of the table should sit roughly level with the arm of the sofa or armchair next to it (typically 50 to 60cm from the floor). Sat lower and you end up reaching down for your drink; sat higher and the lamp on top sits in your eyeline. Pairs of side tables flanking a sofa look more considered than a single one on one end.

Console tables have two common uses: behind a free-standing sofa to create a wall where there isn't one, or in a hallway against the entry wall. Hallway consoles are best at 80 to 90cm wide for narrow hallways, 120cm-plus for wider ones, with a height of 75 to 85cm so the surface is hand-height for keys and post.

Material tracks the rest of the room. Solid oak and walnut hold value and look right in any era of British home. Glass tops keep small rooms feeling open but show every fingerprint. Marble and stone tops are the upper-tier statement; heavy, expensive, and need a sturdy base. Painted MDF in the £100 to £300 bracket is fine for five years but doesn't age into anything.

The brands and retailers we list

We pull around 14,500 living room tables across the UK retailer network.

The Range and Robert Dyas dominate the £100 to £400 bracket across coffee, side and console tables.

Oak & More covers solid-oak coffee and side tables in matched ranges at £200 to £600.

Furniture in Fashion stocks contemporary high-gloss, marble-top and metal-frame tables at £150 to £900.

Filter the grid above by category, colour, material or price to narrow things down. Prices update daily.