A chest coffee table is a useful addition to any lounge room, but what exactly is one of those, I hear you ask? Well, it’s a combination piece of furniture which acts as a storage chest and as a coffee table.
You can get various types of chest coffee tables, including one with storage drawers and one with a lift up lid. The drawers are a bit more practical if you want access to the contents quite often. The last thing you want to be doing is to have to move your coffee cups, books, TV remote, magazines, or whatever else you keep on your coffee table in order to lift the lid and fumble around inside for CD’s, DVD’s, or games, whenever you want them. If the storage facility of the coffee chest table is to be accessed often, a drawer system is a lot easier to use, but it does depend on your preference and your lifestyle.
A chest coffee table can be a very bulky item so make sure that it is not too big for your room. Make sure that you really consider the available space before you go out and buy a large chest coffee table and then, a few weeks later, wish you had not because it makes the room feel so much smaller. Buy the right size for your room and your lifestyle. The other thing to consider is whether you are going to leave the chest coffee table in one place in the room, or whether you want to be able to move it around. If you want to move it then choose one with castors, or small wheels on the bottom.
A chest coffee table made of wood is the most common and these come in a variety of woods from soft wood like pine to hard oaks. The colors vary with the wood chosen. Generally speaking soft woods are not as hard wearing as hard woods and tend to be priced accordingly. There are coffee table chests that are made from melamine or other materials like rattan, bamboo and hessian.
Avoid buying something that you like the idea of but might be far too big for your room. This tends to happen with the kind of storage chest coffee table that has a glass sheet on the top because many people fail to allow for the extra distance where the edges protrude. This can be a very expensive mistake so it is a good idea to measure the largest and the smallest sizes that would be suitable for your room. That way you will know immediately if the chest coffee table you choose will suit your lifestyle.
As is often recommended, write down the measurements on a piece of paper and do not try to remember them as you just might get them wrong. Use your own measure to double check measurements even if they are already listed on the sale ticket attached to the chest coffee table in the store.