A Decorative End Table For Your Home

It's always a good idea to have at least one showstopper piece of furniture in a room. In the old days, this could be a baby grand piano or a priceless work of art. But in today's more practical world, you don't have to give up valuable space in your home to something your rarely use or don't even know how to play.

Instead, you can go with something that seems a little more pedestrian, at least in the ordinary home. Yes, we're talking about the venerable end table.

A decorative end table can add a lot of panache to your room. Rather than being a more mundane style, a decorative table is made to be a real standout. It can have more embellishment than a standard table, or perhaps have some useful function, such as having a place to store magazines or a couple of handy drawers for remotes.

If you want a real defining piece, you may want to consider going with a larger than normal table. If you go this route, make sure that it fits the space you have in mind. For example, you can go with a larger end table if it's in a corner, but if it abuts a main traffic corridor and sticks out a bit, you and your guest may end up cursing it instead of appreciating its unique beauty. Also, as always, any table has to have a sense of scale and not dominate the space it's in, or the room for that matter.

If you do have a larger end table on one end, you want to be sure you balance it with a smaller one on the other. They don't have to be similar in size, but if you don't add a second table you'll find that the space looks lopsided.

If you have already fallen in love with an end table that isn't decorative, you can still draw attention to it using a little trick of the trade professionals use. Dressing the table is what theater and museum set decorators use. The idea is to create a living scene using static items. If you've ever toured a museum and felt like someone was living in the period living room on display or noticed that a theater set looked like home, it's because little things were added to the space to give it detail.

The top of an end table is a blank canvas. To give it artistry, you want to create a little scene for it. You can do this through several techniques involving color, height and/or surprise.

Let's start with color. When adding pieces to the table, choose ones that have different color intensities. Choose one item that has a dominant color, hue or intensity. Then add other pieces that are more subtle in tones, supporting the main piece but not drawing attention away from it. You can see this in a movie, where the principal actors wear brighter colors or more complex patterns while the background actors where more subdued palettes.

You can do the same thing with height. Create different levels on the table. For example, a single book, perhaps a leather bound issue near the front of the table, a stack of other books behind it with reading glasses, and a Tiffany style reading light behind.

Finally, the unexpected is always appreciated. Think of something that may come as a surprise, something that shouldn't necessarily be on the table. It can be an amazing, one of a kind antique or a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation. Making a surprising element the major one is a great way to make a run of the mill table stuck on the end of upholstered furnishings stand out.

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