Coffee table fit for purpose

THE NEED FOR A NEW COFFEE TABLE OF A REASONABLE SIZE WAS A CHANCE TO CREATE SOMETHING UNIQUE

Coffee tables — close companions of most sofas, are also a staple project for senior high school woodwork students and just about every handyman with some basic tools.

In the early years of domesticity I found most of them quite irritating insofar as the majority of them fell somewhere between the stools of “partly useful” and “useless”. Either they were not big enough to support a few books as well as the family’s cups and mugs, or they were so small that they could only support a couple of lucky mugs while everyone else had to cast around wondering where they might best rest their plates.

Perhaps my idea of the ideal sized table differs from the norm but I like a table that accommodates the abovementioned items as well as other odds and sods such as mobile phones, glasses, and other paraphernalia we all lug around and want ready access to. The coffee table in our house acts as the unofficial meeting point for all the small things we use during our day, the books and magazines we’re reading, the car keys, mobile phones, as well as the coffee cups and biscuit box.

The quick solution

My initial solution to the problem was simple — I found an old family-sized dining table, cut most of the four legs off and threw a heavy rug over it, to disguise the crumbling chipboard top. The resulting ‘coffee table’ served our family faithfully for years, performing a wide variety of essential duties, happily carrying the cups, books, toys, and plates, etc. Another great benefit of such a homely ‘coffee table’ was that it avoided the need for placemats, coasters and the like. However, the arrival of a grandson has finally heralded its demise. The youngster needs space to racket around in the lounge and he is disinclined to share it with the big table.

Every cloud has a silver lining, they say, and this change has given me the opportunity to build a replacement table not quite as large, but still qualify in the ‘useful’ category.

It has also allowed me to draw on inspiration for its design from sites such as Pinterest which has featured industrial-look furniture. For me to be enthusiastic about building such a straightforward piece of furniture, I needed to incorporate some different features and construction challenges to make it stand out from the crowd.

“I needed to incorporate some different features and construction challenges to make it stand out from the crowd”