Svelte coffee table will solve all your storage problems

The cute box you bought to hold the TV remote? It doesn’t really fit the four remotes now required to manipulate your tangle of streaming services and black boxes. Those cozy blankets you neatly folded over the arm of the sofa last night? Yeah, those are gonna need refolding … again. That basket you’ve been shoving under the coffee table to hide the magazines … not really working. That scheme you had to teach your toddler to put his Matchbox cars back in his room every single time? Remember how your mother laughed about that one? Yes. So storage in the living room is a thing. It’s not that we’re uptight or anything, it’s just that we feel strongly that there ought to be a place where a grown woman can sit down in the evening, maybe to relax with a book or laptop or … a bourbon. Without having to endure a lot of sanitydisturbing clutter. The living room is generally believed to be that place in the home, and yet it’s also the place where the TV lives, and the kids spread out their toys, and folks throw up their feet and toss the toss pillows around.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were one well-designed, living room-worthy receptacle into which messy throws, the TV remotes, the magazines — heck, if that’s your mother at the door, throw in the Matchbox cars too — could be tossed?

Of course, there is. Design Within Reach’s Pocket Table is an extremely svelte rectangle, available in oak, walnut or white lacquer finishes, that gives off a smart, modern vibe. It was designed by architect Lee Mindel in 2016, which probably explains its key feature: It has storage drawers constructed with such perfectly mitered corners that it appears to be storing … nothing.

Because when you train a toddler to put away his tiny cars, by god, he puts them away.