How to Arrange the Perfect Coffee Table

From magazines and books to candles, plants and collectibles.

When your job is essentially touring some of the better houses and apartments in the world, well, you start to take note. Because as different as the multitude of homes are, there are a few staples that are in just about every single one. A great closet kind of goes without saying when you’re in our business, but when we’re trying to decide just how to best display a pair of Tabitha Simmons stilettos for our photographer’s lens, we always go back to the coffee table. Some are spindly little pieces, others are the size of a small swimming pool, but they’re all miniature curations of our subjects’ favorite things. Which got us thinking—how can we do that without it looking like a cluttered mess? When we asked Sibella Court, an interior decorator and stylist, she broke it down into four distinct parts. Just press play and learn how to create a Coveteur-worthy (if we do say so ourselves) coffee table.