Sculptural coffee tables in wood and stone: size, height and top
How long and how high a coffee table should be next to your sofa, oval or round, a teak or a stone top, what natural stone means in daily life, and the side table that goes with it.
Choose a coffee table about two thirds the length of your sofa, level with the seat or a few centimetres lower, with 40 to 45 cm between table and sofa. A teak top is warm and quiet; a stone top is heavier and cool to the touch. Our solid teak Coffee Table starts at €3,500, with a teak or stone top.
How big should a coffee table be?
Start with the sofa. A common rule of thumb is a coffee table about two thirds of the sofa’s length. Shorter, and it looks lost in front of a long seat. Longer, and the people at the ends have to climb past it.
Then the gap. Leave 40 to 45 cm between the front of the sofa and the edge of the table. That is close enough to reach a cup without getting up, and wide enough to walk through without turning sideways.
Height comes last. A table level with the sofa seat, or a few centimetres lower, keeps the room calm and puts the top within reach. Low sofas want low tables.
Our Coffee Table is 130, 140 or 150 cm long, 70 to 80 cm wide and 32 to 35 cm high. By the two-thirds rule, that suits a sofa of roughly 200 to 230 cm.
Oval, round or rectangular?
The outline decides how people move around the table. An oval has no corners to catch a shin, and it follows the line of a long sofa. A round table works in front of a corner sofa or between two or three chairs, where people sit around it on more than one side.
A rectangle is the most formal of the three. It sits well in a room of straight lines, but its corners are where people knock into it.
Our Coffee Table is an oval. For a round table, the Drum Coffee Table is Ø 90 or Ø 110 cm and 36 cm high.
A teak top, a stone top, or both
Wood is warm to the hand. A cup goes down without a sound, and a solid teak top can be sanded and refinished if it is ever marked. Ours come in three finishes, applied by hand: Light Oak, Antique Oak and Wengé.
Stone is cool, heavy and still. It adds visual weight, which helps a table hold its own in a large room or on a dark floor. We offer three stones: Travertine, Crema Marfil and Dark Emperador.
Combining the two keeps the wood where it shows most, in the base, and puts stone where your hands and your cups are. A stone top costs extra; the product page shows the price for each length.
What it means to live with natural stone
Every slab is different. Veining, colour and the small natural pores in travertine vary from one block to the next, so the top you receive will not match a photograph exactly. Most people buy stone for that reason.
Stone is also heavy. A coffee table with a stone top is not something you slide across the room on your own, so decide where it goes before it arrives.
Ask any maker how their stone tops are finished and sealed, and what they advise for daily use. The answer depends on the stone and the treatment, so it should come from the people who made it.
What gives a coffee table its form
With a coffee table you see the base as much as the top, because you look down on it from the sofa. That is where the form is.
Our Coffee Table stands on two layered teak pedestals that flare out under the oval top. The Drum Coffee Table is built from twelve rings of solid teak, each 2.5 cm high and made of 16 segments, stacked and turned into the shape of an upturned bowl. Its top sits on a recessed neck, so it seems to float, and a steel plate in the base keeps it steady.
Both are made in solid teak, never veneer. If you want to know why that matters for a piece you will keep, read solid wood vs veneer.
The side table that goes with it
A coffee table serves the sofa. A side table serves one seat: the end of the sofa, or the chair across from it. Its top works best around the height of the armrest or a little below.
Our Side Table is Ø 45 cm and 50 cm high, with a teak or stone top, from €1,400. The Drum Side Table is the same ring construction as the Drum Coffee Table in a taller barrel: 18 rings, Ø 50 cm, 50 cm high, from €1,600. Next to its coffee table, the lines run on.
How ordering works
Every table is made by hand in our atelier in Bali after your order, in about six weeks. It then travels 6–9 weeks by sea to your door; we deliver within the EU. You pay in full when you order, prices include VAT and shipping is extra. Within the EU we pay the import duties and VAT, so there is nothing to pay on delivery.
A different length or another stone is a custom piece: see custom made or book a call.
Questions
How high should a coffee table be?
Level with the sofa seat or a few centimetres lower. For most sofas that means a table between about 30 and 45 cm high. Our Coffee Table is 32 to 35 cm high, the Drum Coffee Table 36 cm.
What size coffee table suits a three-seater sofa?
Roughly two thirds of the sofa’s length. For a sofa of 200 to 230 cm that is a table of about 130 to 150 cm, the lengths our Coffee Table comes in.
Is a stone coffee table practical?
It is heavy, cool to the touch and every slab looks different. Ask the maker how the top is finished and sealed and what they advise for daily use, since that depends on the stone.
How much does a solid wood coffee table cost?
Our solid teak Coffee Table starts at €3,500 and the Drum Coffee Table at €2,900, including VAT; shipping is extra. A stone top adds a surcharge per size, shown on the product page.
See the piece
Every piece is handmade in our atelier in Bali, in about six weeks, then shipped to your destination.