Langham Square Coffee Table — In Almond

A square coffee table does something a long rectangular one can't: it gives everyone around it the same reach. Pull four chairs up, or wrap a sectional around it, and nobody is left leaning across a mile of tabletop for their drink. It is the most democratic shape a coffee table comes in.

Look at the legs and you find the real character: bobbin turning, that stacked-bead profile lathed into the wood. It is an old English trick, born in the seventeenth century and revived with gusto by the Victorians, and it carries a little rhythm and craft down each corner that a plain square leg never could. Built from solid wood in a honey finish, a warm golden with the open grain showing through, the table keeps things simple up top: a generous square for trays, books, and the evening's drinks, with a lower shelf below for the overflow, the board games, the magazines, the things that otherwise end up on the floor.

It is the natural choice for a sectional or a squared-off seating group, and it holds a smaller, boxier room better than a long table would. Style the shelf with a stack of books and a bowl of something natural, and leave the top mostly clear.