Description
Round coffee tables solve a problem square ones create. In a room where people walk past the table to reach the sofa, corners are what shins find. NSdirect sells this one at 36 inches in diameter in a light walnut finish, with a 33.5 inch lower shelf, on matte alloy legs.
It is one of the better documented tables on this shelf, and it includes one field that almost no furniture listing bothers with and everyone should. It also contains a claim about water that its own specification contradicts. Below is what NSdirect states and what to make of it.
What NSdirect states
The manufacturer describes a two tier design with a 36 inch round top and an additional 33.5 inch bottom shelf for magazines and toys. Construction is P2 environmental grade medium density fibreboard with a wood grain veneer, finished with what the listing calls a waterproof and wear resistant multi step process, on thick matte alloy legs.
Overall dimensions are 36 inches by 36 inches by 18 inches high, weight is 40 pounds, and the base to top distance is 16.5 inches. The maximum weight recommendation is 300 pounds. Usage is indoor. Assembly is stated at 15 to 30 minutes with all needed tools and instructions included, and the warranty is 3 years.
Waterproof, against a specification that says not stain resistant
One bullet describes a waterproof and wear resistant multi step finish protecting the wood grain veneer. The specification block records is stain resistant, No. Those two statements pull in opposite directions and the honest reading is somewhere in between.
A multi step lacquer over a veneer does shed a spill from the face of the panel, which is what the waterproof claim is describing. It does not make the piece waterproof as an object, because the vulnerable parts of any veneered MDF table are the edges, the underside and the screw holes, where the finish thins or stops. Water that sits at an edge swells the board and the swelling is permanent. And shedding water is a different property from resisting a stain: red wine, turmeric and marker will mark a lacquered surface if left. Treat it as wipe clean rather than impervious, and use coasters.
The doorway field is genuinely useful and almost unique
The specification records minimum required door width, 40 inches. That is a field that ought to be on every large furniture listing and almost never is, and it exists because a 36 inch round top does not tilt through a narrow opening the way a rectangular one does.
The reason is geometry. A rectangular tabletop can be turned on edge and angled through a doorway. A circle presents the same 36 inches whichever way it is rotated, so it needs a genuine 36 inches plus clearance to pass. NSdirect saying 40 inches accounts for that, and it is a warning worth heeding in older houses, flats with tight hallways, or anywhere with a turn at the top of a staircase. Measure the narrowest point on the route in, not just the front door.
The tabletop thickness figure is wrong
Tabletop thickness is recorded as 5 inches. The table is 18 inches high overall with a base to top distance of 16.5 inches, which leaves 1.5 inches for the top. A 5 inch thick tabletop would consume most of the table's height and would be visible as a slab in every photograph.
Other fields wander in the same way. Handle material is recorded as wood, on a coffee table with no handles. Frame material is metal while base is also metal, describing the same legs twice. As throughout this catalogue, the internally consistent dimensions are the ones to trust and the loose descriptive fields are not. The useful numbers here, 36 inch diameter, 18 inch height, 16.5 inch base to top and 40 pounds, all agree with each other.
Three hundred pounds, and the shelf underneath
The maximum weight recommendation of 300 pounds is a good figure for a coffee table and comfortably above anything a household will actually put on one. What the listing does not do is separate the top from the lower shelf, so whether 300 pounds is the total for the piece or the rating for the top alone is unclear.
The lower shelf is the part worth thinking about. A 33.5 inch shelf will hold a great deal of books and magazines, and books are heavy in a way that surprises people; a stacked shelf of hardbacks approaches the sort of load nobody expects a coffee table to carry. The clearance between the shelf and the floor is not stated either, which matters if the plan is to slide storage baskets underneath. A design that provides its own baskets, such as the Rolanstar lift top with two rattan baskets, removes that guesswork.
What the listing does not establish
Shelf clearance height and shelf load rating separately from the table total. Leg diameter, which along with the fixing method is what determines whether a metal legged table stays rigid over years. Whether the veneer is real wood or a printed paper foil, which decides whether a scratch can be sanded and touched up or is permanent.
Assembly is stated at 15 to 30 minutes but the number of people required is not given, and a 40 pound top being lowered onto legs is easier with two. Whether leg levellers are fitted is not stated, which matters on an uneven floor. There is no statement about the compartment between the tiers or how far apart the tiers sit. And the P2 grade board reference is an emissions standard for formaldehyde rather than a strength or durability rating, which is worth knowing rather than reading as a quality mark for the furniture as a whole.
Who it suits, and who should choose something else
This suits a living room with a walkway around the table, a household with small children or pets where corners are a nuisance, and anyone who wants somewhere to put magazines that is not the floor. Forty pounds is manageable for one person to shift for vacuuming, the three year warranty is longer than most on this shelf, and the light walnut finish is neutral enough to survive a change of sofa.
Choose something else if the room needs storage that hides rather than displays, since an open lower shelf shows everything on it; a lift top with a closed compartment such as the Ashley Valebeck or the Yaheetech 41 inch answers that. Choose something else if the delivery route is narrower than 40 inches. And choose something else if the table needs to double as a working surface, because a fixed 18 inch height is a coffee table height and nothing raises it. Compare across our coffee table shelf and the storage options on the TV stand listing.
