Organizing coffee table

If your coffee table is the catchall for your magazines, is stacked high with coffee-table books, and is your display space for all your knickknacks, then you need help.

Place it like the pros. The table should be spaced about 18 inches from the sofa or chairs. Put it close enough to make it easy for a guest to put down a drink but far enough away to prevent banging a leg when the guest gets up.

Get it together. When you're shopping for accessories, look for unity. The key is repetition - of color, texture or material. For a traditional table, Shore repeated the gold and burgundy color scheme in book bindings and a topiary's container. Although she used three differently shaped vases on a contemporary table, they are unified with the same color orange. Shore says the same varied shapes wouldn't work if they were orange, pink and green.

Scale it right. If the tabletop is small, the accessories also should be smaller scale so they don't overwhelm the space. The idea is to have enough room on the table so someone doesn't have to move anything to put down a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Items can be bulkier on a larger table.

Go high. Many designers think the visitor's eye should be brought up from the low coffee table with a tall item. Shore used a topiary to accomplish this. If you use a tall item, be sure it isn't in the way of seeing another person in the conversation area. You also want to make sure that the tall item doesn't obscure that very important view of the television set.

Find a focal point. Most coffee-table arrangements have a focal point, the item that attracts your attention because of its size, interesting color or shape. The three orange vases in Shore's contemporary example appear as one and become the focal point.

The odd-number rule. The odd-number rule comes from the fact that people are used to seeing items in pairs, Shore says. Different shapes, sizes and odd numbers provide contrast, she added.

Look for varying ways to create a look. For example, she found three similar glass containers in different sizes and layered them with shells and stones.

If you do decide to go with an even number, just make sure there's a reason.

Off with the books. Shore suggests finding another spot for your magazines, and she doesn't like using coffee-table books as an accessory. They end up looking cluttered and messy.

Set reading items in a special box or holder next to the sofa.

"I don't like to have them there," she says. "It's too predictable. And we are looking for what isn't predictable."

If you must, display only one at a time. That way, guests will browse through it, and it's not there simply taking up space.