Article: Choose from the cream of coffee tables; Style City/design If your living room is lacking a focal point, perhaps you should consider the much-maligned coffee table. Gabrielle Fagan reports.(Features)

Byline: Gabrielle Fagan

IF THERE'S one piece of furniture that packs a deceptively mighty punch in your home, it's a coffee table.

Once dismissed as a resting place for mugs - or feet - today these are a visual focal point for living rooms, sitting in the centre with seating grouped around them.

Officially defined as "low tables where magazines can be placed and coffee or cocktails are served", they should be only 16-24 inches high (40.6cmto 61cm).

But nowadays those are just the basic ingredients, as imaginative designers have conjured as many styles as there are coffee blends with something to suit every taste and budget.

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