Count me in on the toe-mashing issue - we eliminated a lot of really nice coffee tables in our recent search because they sat flat on the floor like a trunk rather than having any kind of leg to make some space beneath. For me if it's close enough to reach easily to set down a drink or a plate there's not a lot of room for feet, even my relatively puny size 8s. :-) Now that said, if a trunk's a wee bit low and it's not a valuable piece, there's no reason why you couldn't add feet to it and circumvent that issue - this site has a nice selection. Per this particular trunk, I don't think it goes all that well with your other furniture - just a little too primitive-country and I think it would have a real chance of just looking sort of ratty against the more transitional style that dominates the room. Make sure of the antique shop's return policy if you decide to take a shot at it. Now, regarding the furniture placement... you have acres of space between the seating and the TV, which looks a little peculiar IMO, and while it might be a perspective thing due to the camera angle it looks like the couch might be a bit tight with the eating table, the one with the white chair. Try turning the chair some so it faces the tv a little more squarely (which then also rotates the ottoman away from a potential coffee table location), bringing the couch a few feet closer to the TV (tightening it up with the chair) and putting another side table next to the chair (on the right side as viewed from picture #1). A skinny console table behind the couch dresses up the blah expanse of back-of-the-couch - perhaps something like so, with some shelves or drawers (I don't know any house that can't use a bit more storage). If there isn't a side table on the window side of the couch, there should be one if at all possible, since there should be somewhere to set a drink down from every seating location in a room, IMO. If your DH is really, truly adamant about not having a coffee table, an area rug (one that's not too thick will go on top of carpet quite well, with a special pad to keep it from "creeping") will help visually occupy the big blank beige space between couch and TV. dilly_dally wrote: "you should keep the majority of the wood the same in the room" Sez who? I certainly don't think so! I have a mix of woods AND a mix of finishes on said woods and MUCH prefer it - for me everything sort of blurs together if there's too much of the same wood (even more so if it's all the same finish). In my living room I currently have oak furniture in several different finishes (ranging from golden oak to dark chocolate, both plain-sawn and quartersawn), antique mahogany, dark cherry, and heart-pine flooring, and a hard-maple coffee table in a nutmeg stain is on its way. I'm casually keeping half an eye out for just the right antique chair-side table in something like walnut. In my previous house at one point I had eleven different woods in one room and loved the variety. Painted furniture isn't really to my taste for my own home but I think an eclectic mixture of different painted and stained finishes is a great look, but you do have to have some guts about really mixing as opposed to just one piddly unmatched piece in a sea of sameness.

I've been thinking about it and I think you should go custom. That's always the best way to maximize space and utility, and you have a small space that you want to do a lot of things. If your household is like mine, a space like that will be a mess unless it is easy to use. LOL, and even then, come to think of it! Also, any low cost furniture piece with drawers, in my experience, the drawers do not open and close well and so they usually are left half open or forsaken altogether. It needn't be really costly; instead of drawers you can use baskets. But a custom box with shelves and feet will maximize space.

Thanks everyone! I guess it's back to the drawing board. Fwiw none of the side tables are necessarily staying, I wanted to start with the coffee table and then move on to finishing the rest of the room. It sounds like the consensus is a rectangle, and not as light as I'd been shooting for. @nosoccermom, the table we have has seen a decade of two boys. Much of the finish has been rubbed off the top. I don't mind it too much but it's one of the few things in the house my husband feels strongly about. I should just refinish it as @linelle suggests. But I have so many unfinished projects and so little time to do things like this (as opposed to seemingly unlimited time to procrastinate work by surfing the internet!) @olychick, you nailed part of my issue - any table that is equally useful when sitting on either sofa would take up too much space in the room. I'd thought about bunching tables or something like @jlc712 posted, but I wondered if I'd drive myself nuts trying to re-align them every 10 minutes after my kids drag them about the room. @Beverly, rattan + kids is a bad combination, unfortunately. I like some of the first tables you posted, but my husband nixed ones that look rustic-y. Maybe something like the first table @starnold posted? I really like the oval, and the color seems like it could work with the dark brown sofas. I'm sure part of my problem is that I'm just so used to the light table; I need to try out something darker to get over that hangup. Thanks everyone!

Thanks for the ideas! I can't mount cabinets there though due to the air return vent, it will have to be something freestanding that will allow the air to circulate and also could be moved out of the way when servicing the furnace or water heater. Unless I get really creative with the hack and redirect the air vent around and through a toekick, but I am feeling a bit of project burn-out right now at the tail end of this renovation and just want an easy quick solution :) Here's an old, not great photo of the area. The frame shown is the furnace/water heater closet. We are replacing the bifold door with 2 french doors solid core, so I can mount a shelf and hooks on those, and the new doors will muddle the sounds of the gas appliances better. Below the funny closet door is the return air vent for the furnace - in this photo is is hidden by this shoe rack we used temporarily when we first moved in. We later had a hall tree storage bench, and we did like keeping our shoes in it but they were all a jumble and not organized. We do have a hall closet as well, but it's mostly converted to a cat litter room - has a cat door in the door and the litter boxes are in there, but there is room to install something to organize shoes, like an ikea closet thing... just not sure if DH would bother opening the closet and putting away his shoes inside rather than dumping into a storage bench. We can certainly use the closet for out of season stuff, and only need a small amount of storage for 2 pairs of shoes each in the entry.