Coffee Tables in my Headspace

I've been thinking about what our next coffee table will look like for so long now, I'm actually kind of curious about what will replace those thoughts once we finally get one. If it's the solution to the oil spill in the Gulf, I'll feel pretty guilty for not pulling the trigger on my purchase sooner.

We've been looking at all the usual suspects: Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Macy's, ZGallerie, but nothing is fitting the bill. I want The Perfect Table, and I don't want to spend $300 on it. It's a table -- four legs and a piece of wood in most cases -- and I can't justify some of the prices I'm seeing.

Now, if the table is more than four legs and a piece of wood, I'll consider paying the price. As you know, Neil and I have a penchant for Furniture That Does Stuff, so this coffee table is a winner in our book:

Considering this piece is only available from the fancy folks at Design Within Reach, I doubt it's a viable option for our coffee table needs. A gal can dream, though.

I'm also a fan of mid-century modern tables with hairpin legs. Here's a colorful trio of tables that caught my eye. I'd probably opt for the citrus orange one.

My vast coffee table research taught me that it's actually pretty darned easy to build your own hairpin leg coffee table. You can buy the legs and the hardware in just about any size you want, and then it's just a matter of finding the perfect table top. I've been tempted to go on the hunt for the most perfect piece of reclaimed wood, pull out the ol' drill, and create something like this:

I'll be honest: Neil and I are not the let's-spend-Sunday-afternoon-hunting-for-the-perfect-piece-of-reclaimed-wood types. It might be more realistic for us to take on a project like this one from Red Jet Whistle (a blog I'd never heard of before but am certainly going to subscribe to):

I love that it can double as a bench for extra seating. That's something we need desperately as there are only certain people we feel comfortable forcing to squeeze on the couch all together. With Ginger. I guess I can also relate to this picture because the table sits on FLOR tiles (I bought some lovely chartreuse FLOR tiles back in March for our living room to add a pop of color to our otherwise not-very-colorful house). There's something different going on with these FLOR tiles though -- do you see it? Here's a closer look:

How cute is that design? I wonder if it was born out of disdain for right angles or if something happened to that corner of the rug (like cat puke or a nail polish spill) and the owner salvaged the tile in a creative way. I'm sure there's a story there.

I'll be sure to keep you posted on what I land on. And then I'll solve all the world's problems, promise.