Coffee Table Saga

We've been on a quest for a new coffee table for quite some time now. Shortly after we first moved into the condo, I found a Danish modern style coffee table at the Goodwill. It was 20 bucks.

It was nice, but a bit scratched up. It was supposed to be a temporary fix until we could find something better. That was three years ago.

The Danish modern coffee table was cool looking, but a bit wobbly and also too long. It was designed to sit in front of a lengthy sofa, and not a small sectional like we have. So Aaron and I bought a small saw at Sears. Aaron went to work on the coffee table on the deck and sawed off one end. Then we reattached the legs and, "Bob's your uncle", as the Brits say.

But having a sawed off coffee table is only slightly less trashy than putting an old couch on your porch, so we looked high and low for the perfect coffee table. We looked at Crate and Barrel, CB2, West Elm, and Ikea, just to name a few. Nothing seemed quite right. Our sectional is smaller than some and on the low side compared to standard couches. So, it calls for a smaller, lower coffee table. But have you been out in the marketplace lately? So many cool coffee tables are about 45 inches long! That goes way over the edge of our sectional and looks totally of out of scale. And we ain't having that. No sir.

Finally, we found a round table at Fred Meyer that we thought would look nice with the rest of our furniture. It was about 30 inches in diameter and 18 inches high. I thought it just might work. So, we packed it into my car, came home, Aaron put it together with the dinky little Allan wrench... and I instantly hated it. Aaron thought it looked fine, but I thought it should really be no higher than 16 inches. So, we took it apart and returned it to Fred Meyer.

Meanwhile, Aaron continued to loathe the rickety Goodwill coffee table. So we kept looking, but after the Fred Meyer round table debacle, I was apprehensive. Was 17 inches too high? Was 40 inches square to big? Would round be ok or would square look better? It was all too much, so I temporarily gave up.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was at Dania with my Mom looking for a headboard for the bed in the extra bedroom. I had lost all hope of finding a coffee table, when we came upon this one. It was square and 16.5 inches high and 35.5 inches square. I wasn't sure it would work, but my Mom encouraged me to give it a try after we found out that they have a flexible return policy.

Well, I am happy to report that the new coffee table is a winner!

It is sturdy, fits just fine and is big enough to hold more than a couple glasses!! The icing on the cake is that it was only $150. (I thought that wasn't too shabby, since some of the Target coffee tables were in the $300-$400 range.) Aaron is not in love with the Dania coffee table, but I said we can keep our eyes peeled for something he likes better. (Since he only shops for headphones, I don't think this will happen anytime soon.) In the meantime, I am enjoying setting things down on the new coffee table and not having to worry about bumping the table leg and knocking over the whole kit and caboodle.