Side Table – Whisky Finish, Compact Accent Table for Living Rooms

One finish, called Whisky, a mid-brown with a warm amber cast that lands in exactly the register the name suggests. A single-finish table is a simpler decision than a range, and it usually means the piece was drawn around that one color rather than adapted to several.

Compact tables live or die on proportion, because there is not enough surface for anything else to matter. The top has to be big enough for a lamp and a glass together without growing into a full side table, and the height has to land near a sofa arm rather than well below it. Whisky as a tone sits between the pale and dark ends of most wood palettes, which makes it easier to place in a room that already has more than one wood in it.

It goes at the end of a sofa or beside a chair, in the space where a larger table would look forced.

• Finish: Whisky