Strategies for Decorating Coffee Tables

Once you have an arrangement you like, enjoy it for a few weeks — and then change it. "After you've had something in the same place for a while, you stop seeing it," designer Nancy Barsotti says. Coffee tables are the perfect place for seasonal decorating: Try a bowl filled with pretty seashells in the summer; a cluster of mini pumpkins and a vase filled with bittersweet branches in the fall; a glass jar holding shiny ornaments in the winter; and an orchid and stack of gardening books in the spring.

Besides, now that you're such an ace at accessorizing, you'll want to show off your skill as often as you can.

Leah Hennen is a freelance writer in Oakland, Calif., who writes on interior design topics. She details her design finds and decorating obsessions in her blog: More Ways to Waste Time.