aL: all about tables

One of my favorite things to go hunting for is a new surface. What do you mean a new surface?? Anything on top of which you can place other things. Anything that can be used for storage, decoration, eating, studying, working, having a conversation, resting your drink or your book or your mail or whatever. And yes, I’m talking about tables.

But you can really use any surface as a table. Sometimes I use stools, or wooden chairs, and in the photos below you’ll see that I’ve used my mama’s old cedar toy chest as my coffee table (thanks mom!) The best thing about tables is that you don’t ever have to have two of the same in order to pull a room together. Out of all of the furniture elements in a room, your tables can be the most mis-matched and you can still make it work.

These are three of my favorite tables in my apartment right now, and a few different ways I’ve styled them in the past couple of weeks.

Table 1: The Nightstand

Last week I showed you guys some of the necessities on/in my nightstand. This is the table that I change up the least. I NEED to have: lipbalm, hot buttered rum lipgloss, flowers or a plant, my favorite perfume, a jewelry dish, a lamp, a delicious smelling candle, two books (one for learning and one that's just a good story), and a bottle of lotion. If I even try to go to sleep without those things I swear I will have nightmares. It's not good. (I even carry most of those things- okay only the beauty products- with me when I sleep elsewhere. Necessities.) What does change are: the types of plants/flowers, whether I keep the beauty products in a tray or in my little catch-all drawer, and the books that I am reading.

I'm (still) reading The Art of War, and a book called Pigeon English.

Ranunculus season!

My favorite candle right now. It smells like my gramma's pasture did when I was a kid.

Table 2: The Small Telephone Table

This table was my grampa's first telephone table. I have no idea if he made it or bought it but when my gramma passed away, it was passed on to me. I've moved it all over but I think I've found its permanent spot next to my rocking chair. I absolutely love the yellow color (another paint sample that I didn't keep the card for.. uups) that I used to paint it.

First, it took up some awkward corner space in my living room. Now I have a better plan for that corner.

I carry all three of those notebooks with me at (almost) all times.

My favorite styling of this table. The bottles are old cough syrup & elixir bottle from Old Sau's.

Table 3: The Coffee Table
On one of my best hunts I came home with 8 (eight) pieces of furniture all crammed in the trunk of my Jeep (impressive, right?) One of those pieces was a GIGANTIC coffee table that had a terrible paint job- peeling, cracked, gross... but I thought- no problem, I can fix this! I spent three weeks removing the paint, sanding it down, re-painting it. I spent four months staring at it in my living room and hating it more and more every day. Then I had the epiphany (!) to tear it apart and use the sides for shelves, and to use the cedar chest as my coffee table. And suddenly all was right with the world again.