Table tips

HOW many times have you sat around your immaculate coffee table sipping from tiny espresso cups, trying to muster that indolent elegance of the French?

Or, for you, is the coffee table just a hub of debris that builds up over a week, and a place to plonk the wine bottle, a coffee mug and the daily newspaper?

Coffee tables tell a great deal about their owners’ personalities. There’s the Spartan chic of the sleek model, bordered by contemporary sofas while sparingly decorated with statement candlesticks, and polished to within an inch of its life by an obsessive compulsive owner. It’s the table where we dare not squeak a timid request to place a glass upon it. Or is yours the marginally more relaxed vignette of a well dusted surface artfully off-setting an arrangement of summer blooms that dare not drop a petal?