Ask ten different people and you'll get ten different ways in which each of them uses their coffee table. Some people use the coffee table in their living room to put their feet on while they watch television. Others use the coffee table as a decorator accent in a room, often bedecked with flowerpots, floral displays or magazines. Others use the coffee table as an eating table while they watch television. Still others use the coffee table to place study supplies or as a general catchall in the living room. How often to you see an empty coffee table? Not very often. They're usually either cluttered or spotless, depending on how many children or teenagers live in the household.

A coffee table can be made of anything, really. Glass, wood, plastic, even a piece of plywood balanced on cinderblocks can serve as a coffee table. Children use a coffee table as a toy, sometimes creating a pirate ship or tank with it, while teens convert it to a platform for their game stations. Men use a coffee table to put their feet up when they get home, and women do the same.

A coffee table is an indispensable piece of furniture in most living rooms and dens, but it's rarely used to serve formal coffee from. Gone are the days of afternoon get-togethers when coffee and biscuits were served, complete with linen tablecloths and silver spoons and fine china. Today, a coffee table is a sturdy piece of furniture designed to withstand the antics of children and adults alike. For many households, the coffee table is the place to store backpacks and textbooks and homework. It's a place to spread out the newspaper or to complete crossword puzzles. It's a place to gather around, either on chairs or on the floor.

A coffee table these days can often be the one piece of furniture that a family gathers around on a nightly basis. For that reason alone, a coffee table is a valuable piece of furniture for every family, no matter what it's made out of.

A coffee table can be made of marble culled from an Italian quarry or pieced together by nails and two-by-fours. It can be made of stone or pressed plywood. But a coffee table is more than a collection of physical materials. A coffee table is the true centerpiece to any living room or den and nearly every homeowner or apartment dweller has one. It serves its function in the household, no matter what that function is. It may be fancy or plain, outrageously expensive or cheap as dirt, but a coffee table is a coffee table and no home is complete without one.