Life In Terms of Coffee Tables
An inner interior designer can emerge at any time in life.
For me, I took over my parent's unfinished basement and attempted to turn it into my first design project.
I lined up the castoff dining chairs that used to grace my grandmother's kitchen, and covered them with a quilt to create a makeshift sofa for the kids' corner of the cellar.
Even as a youngster, I knew that this furniture arrangement required a coffee table.
I did what I could with kid stuff, and fashioned a makeshift coffee table out of board game boxes.
Fast-forward ten years, and I'm heading off to college.
My mom decided I needed a steamer trunk to haul my things to my new school that was 200 miles away.
This big blue classic ended up at the end of the extra-ling twin bed, and it became a resting place for the popcorn popper, drinking glasses pilfered from the campus Rathskellar, and an illegal hot plate.
That steamer trunk turned out to be the best coffee table on the entire third floor of Montauk Hall, and it migrated to a couple of student apartments when we outgrew the dorms.
My first home with my first husband got me itching for some real furniture.
We bought a new sofa at a clearance center with money from our wedding.
But we didn't spring for the tables.
In the basement of the house we rented on Myrtle Avenue, we found treasure-an abandoned solid cherry coffee table, a little worse for wear.
This was my first experiment with refinishing furniture, and I amazed myself.
After removing the fancy furniture hardware, stripping the damaged finish, and picking out a gorgeous natural stain, we lay a coat of satin polyurethane that turned that project into a work of art.
My husband got the table I treasured in our divorce.
As a response to that loss, I went furniture shopping, and what did I buy? A gorgeous rosewood coffee table with matching end tables.
Its contemporary lines contrasted with the traditional one I left behind.
That made sense.
It was a new beginning.
Husband #2 came with his own sofa and end tables, but no coffee table.
A little odd, I thought, but he got his things from an estate sale, so who knows what happened to the missing piece of the suite? In the weird way that things sometimes happen, we checked out a rental that the landlord was reluctant to show, because the previous tenant left some furniture behind.
We went in anyway, and sitting in the middle of the floor was a coffee table-an exact match for the set my husband bought at auction.
Two daughters came along.
My gorgeous rosewood table gave way to a softer-edged wicker version, so much better to handle the stumbles and bumps suffered by a pair of toddlers.
Moving into a bigger home meant it was time to buy a formal living room suite, and I found a wrought iron table topped with beveled glass, which was fine, because the girls were big.
I bought my first round coffee table to put in front of my family room sectional, and it must have been a great choice, because my best friend went out and bought the same one for her house.
When I bought furniture for a vacation house, I picked out an oversized ottoman and topped it with a tray.
Lately I've been thinking-maybe the sitting area in the master bedroom needs a tiny coffee table of its own.
One life story, told in coffee tables.
For me, I took over my parent's unfinished basement and attempted to turn it into my first design project.
I lined up the castoff dining chairs that used to grace my grandmother's kitchen, and covered them with a quilt to create a makeshift sofa for the kids' corner of the cellar.
Even as a youngster, I knew that this furniture arrangement required a coffee table.
I did what I could with kid stuff, and fashioned a makeshift coffee table out of board game boxes.
Fast-forward ten years, and I'm heading off to college.
My mom decided I needed a steamer trunk to haul my things to my new school that was 200 miles away.
This big blue classic ended up at the end of the extra-ling twin bed, and it became a resting place for the popcorn popper, drinking glasses pilfered from the campus Rathskellar, and an illegal hot plate.
That steamer trunk turned out to be the best coffee table on the entire third floor of Montauk Hall, and it migrated to a couple of student apartments when we outgrew the dorms.
My first home with my first husband got me itching for some real furniture.
We bought a new sofa at a clearance center with money from our wedding.
But we didn't spring for the tables.
In the basement of the house we rented on Myrtle Avenue, we found treasure-an abandoned solid cherry coffee table, a little worse for wear.
This was my first experiment with refinishing furniture, and I amazed myself.
After removing the fancy furniture hardware, stripping the damaged finish, and picking out a gorgeous natural stain, we lay a coat of satin polyurethane that turned that project into a work of art.
My husband got the table I treasured in our divorce.
As a response to that loss, I went furniture shopping, and what did I buy? A gorgeous rosewood coffee table with matching end tables.
Its contemporary lines contrasted with the traditional one I left behind.
That made sense.
It was a new beginning.
Husband #2 came with his own sofa and end tables, but no coffee table.
A little odd, I thought, but he got his things from an estate sale, so who knows what happened to the missing piece of the suite? In the weird way that things sometimes happen, we checked out a rental that the landlord was reluctant to show, because the previous tenant left some furniture behind.
We went in anyway, and sitting in the middle of the floor was a coffee table-an exact match for the set my husband bought at auction.
Two daughters came along.
My gorgeous rosewood table gave way to a softer-edged wicker version, so much better to handle the stumbles and bumps suffered by a pair of toddlers.
Moving into a bigger home meant it was time to buy a formal living room suite, and I found a wrought iron table topped with beveled glass, which was fine, because the girls were big.
I bought my first round coffee table to put in front of my family room sectional, and it must have been a great choice, because my best friend went out and bought the same one for her house.
When I bought furniture for a vacation house, I picked out an oversized ottoman and topped it with a tray.
Lately I've been thinking-maybe the sitting area in the master bedroom needs a tiny coffee table of its own.
One life story, told in coffee tables.
