The Best Oval Coffee Table Ideas

An coffee table is a welcome addition to most living rooms or home spaces for relaxing and informal socializing, and a key style is the oval coffee table. It’s a small and low table used to provide shelving and table space for resting drinks, books, home decor, and any other items or trinkets you want to display in your home. Some families use theirs for dining and storage, where others use theirs only for style and to add a feature into the room. Either way, there are a number of reasons why coffee tables have remained as popular as they are since they grew to popularity in Europe during the Victorian era. They began life as a quintessentially British piece of furniture and were originally intended to be used for tea, but their style, durability, and functionality have transformed them worldwide into a living room staple.

Traditional coffee tables are low, and take a rectangular or square shape intended to fit between sofas and armchairs. These are still high in popularity, but lacking in imagination and don’t always carry the same charm as an oval coffee table does.

If you look into the meaning of ovals in interior design and what they signify, they are symbolic of harmony, safety, and union. If these words fit the description of the atmosphere you want your room to provide, including an oval shaped coffee table can help you to achieve it. Historically, ovals and circles have been perceived as more feminine, and hard, straight lines perceived as more masculine. Interior design is complex and no rules are 100% true, but it is certainly worth considering when selecting your living room furniture.

Above everything, oval shaped coffee tables are more unusual than their traditional rectangular counter parts. Ovals are more difficult to use spatially, which is what makes them so particularly rare in living rooms. However, they can bring curved lines into the living room which is an alternative style that is often difficult to achieve without bespoke furniture design, and these curves soften the enter atmosphere in the room. Softer and curved lines are also family friendly, reducing the amount of sharp corners and narrow walk ways for toddlers and small children to bump into!

Wood is certainly the most common choice in all coffee tables, including oval shaped coffee tables, but now that other materials are more available to us and to manufacturers, designs made of stone, metal, and plastics are growing. We’re even seeing a growth in oval shaped coffee tables that combine materials, e.g. a wooden coffee table frame with an elegant and luxurious marble surface. These styles often come with very detailed and ornate legs that has a very classic and timeless feel.

Your oval coffee table doesn’t need to be supported by legs that are overtly ornate and detailed. For more modern designs, or for period items re-enacting the Art Deco or mid-century trends, the curved lines of an oval shaped coffee table with clean and sharp lines will contrast against other geometric prints and bold colors.