G-Jessica Coffee Table: a gold angular base, and what it suits

The G-Jessica Coffee Table is listed as an angular base in gold under a ceramic top, at 120 x 60 x 45cm. The size is the same as several other tables we supply, so the base is the reason to choose it. That makes this mainly a decision about metal, and metal is the thing people most often get wrong in a living room.

Living with a gold base

Gold does not have to match everything, but it should not be the only warm metal in a room full of cold ones. Before you order, walk the room and count the metal that shows: lamp bases, curtain poles, radiator valves, picture frames, handles on a sideboard, the frame of a mirror, the legs of a dining chair if the space is open-plan. If most of it is chrome or brushed steel, a single gold table can look stranded. If there is already warm metal in the lighting or a mirror frame, it reads as deliberate.

The other point about an angular base is sightlines: angles catch the light differently as you move around them, which is part of the appeal. What the listing does not give is the shape of the base or how wide it is at floor level. So if the table has to sit in a gap between two fixed pieces, measure the gap against the top, which is the full 120cm, and ask us about the base rather than working it out from a photograph.

The numbers, and the room

Read as length, depth and height, 120cm suits a sofa of roughly 180cm to 240cm and 45cm sits about level with a typical seat cushion. Leave about 40cm of clear floor in front of the sofa, so the whole arrangement wants around 200cm along its length. The listing does not label the three figures, so ask us to confirm them if a centimetre matters.

What the listing does not cover

• The shade of the gold, and whether it is polished or brushed. Judge it from the photographs on the G-Jessica Coffee Table page, or ask us.
• The colour, pattern and thickness of the ceramic top.
• The weight, and whether the base arrives attached. Ceramic is heavy, so plan the route in and have help on delivery day.
• Any cleaning advice for either the metal or the top.

Where the listing is silent we will say so and find out, rather than print something that sounds right.

If gold is the look, the other options

For gold mixed with silver on a cross base and a marble top, see the GS-Lucy Coffee Table; the GS-Madrid Coffee Table is the same mixed-metal idea on a block base. For a plain gold frame with a circular leg at each end, there is the SG-Chelsea Coffee Table. All of them, and the chrome equivalents, are in Coffee Tables.

Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond. When the metal in your room is settled, the G-Jessica Coffee Table page has the photographs and the order form.