SG-Chelsea Lamp Table: gold frame, round base, 50cm wide

Gold is the decision here. The SG-Chelsea Lamp Table is listed with a gold frame and a circular pedestal base, one size at 50 x 50 x 55cm, and a top offered in either marble or ceramic. The chrome version on the same shelf quotes the same size and the same two tops, so what you are really choosing is a metal that the rest of the room has to live with.

Where a gold frame works

Warm metal wants company. In a room that already has brass door handles, warm-toned lighting, aged mirror frames or a wooden floor with yellow in it, a gold-framed table settles in and looks chosen. In a room built around chrome, brushed steel, cool grey walls and a white kitchen opening off it, the same table sits forward of everything else and announces itself. That is fine if it is meant to be the one accent, and awkward if there are three other accents competing already.

One useful test before ordering: hold a warm metal object you already own, a lamp base or a picture frame, in the spot the table will go, at about the height of a sofa arm. If it reads as a highlight you like, the table will too.

The round base in a tight corner

The listing calls the pedestal base circular. It does not say what shape the top is, and that is worth settling before you order, because the two read very differently in a small room. The pedestal itself already removes the corner leg that collides with the foot of a sofa, so the table can be nudged right up to the arm whichever top it carries. A round top would also take away the square corner at shin height in a walkway, which matters in a hall or beside a door; a square one gives you more usable surface for a laptop or a tray.

The footprint is the same either way: 50cm across, which is room for a lamp, a drink and a book. If the shape of the top is the thing that decides it, that is the question to put to the shop before ordering, and the photographs are worth a close look first.

Choosing the top, and saying so

The listing gives marble or ceramic. There is no selector for it on the product page, so name the top you want when you order and ask for it back in writing. What the page does not tell you about either option is the weight, the thickness, how the marble is finished, or how it should be cleaned, and none of that is something we will fill in from the outside. Ask the shop, particularly about weight if the table is going up a stair.

The same table in a different metal

The Chelsea Lamp Table is the chrome-framed version, listed at the same size and with the same choice of tops. If you want warm metal but not a single tone, the GS-Lucy Lamp Table mixes silver and gold on a cross base under a stone top. For a two-leg base at the same quoted height, the BK-Roma Lamp Table keeps a ceramic top on two substantial legs, though its listing names no colour for them. The whole shelf is in Side & Lamp Tables, and the rest of the room is in Living Room.

Ordering

This is a piece the shop supplies rather than one of our own, so ask for current timings when you order. Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond. The SG-Chelsea Lamp Table page carries a long set of photographs, which is the right place to judge the tone of the gold.