My Flip Theme Continued

When we moved into our condo we brought and bought furniture. Because our new home is less than one third the size of our former living space, we had a lot of well used and much loved furniture to dispose of. Three kids and 32 years of marriage - you can only imagine how much stuff we had accumulated. Thank goodness for KIJIJI! And thanks to the people who chose to purchase our belongings. I really do believe they loved our antiques and furnishings as much as we did.

One of the tables with which I couldn't part, even though it had no sentimental hold over me, was an inexpensive find that I bought quite a few years ago at Wicker Emporium. I loved that table with its textured woven surface, a mixture of honey and chocolate tweed, that rested upon espresso flavoured long tapered legs. Yes.... I loved the legginess of that table. In our former home, it was sandwiched deliciously between two stately down filled melt in your mouth blue leather wing chairs. In our new condo, I centered it between my licorice red Eames Chair and my husband's sleek black leather recliner. But alas, it was too tall. And so I did the unthinkable. I had the legs cut down.

While aesthetically less pleasing in its stunted reincarnation, the still yummy honey/chocolate table top well served its purpose as a repository for a lamp, the books we read and pens for my husband's stab at his nightly crossword puzzle . It was a place to rest empty dishes and glasses of wine. But functional as it was, standing less proudly than it had in its former life , it blocked the pathway to our ottoman/sofa. Whenever I sought the comfort of the ottoman or my husband went to sit on his chair, we had to squeeze ourselves in between the table and one or other of the chairs that stood guard beside it. A cumbersome and dangerous undertaking. I lived in fear that the lamp would fall off the table and dent our brand new hardwood floors.

So much to my husband's chagrin, off to Homesense I went with bamboo on the brain.

None of the tables at Homesense that day matched the vision inside my head but as I was leaving the store, an item on one of the shelves called out to me. While not bamboo, it had the aesthetic I was searching for. Unsure of its intended function but fully aware that it was not a table, the reinventer inside of me sprung into action. I ambled, no, I raced over to take a closer look. I liked its form, its textured exterior and its proportions. A vase or perhaps an umbrella stand, it was a black metal container that was covered with some sort of natural fibre. Tightly layered, it resembled cork. I flipped over the container, hoping that the bottom could become a table top. Much to my delight, the bottom surface of smooth black metal was surrounded by, but not covered in the fibrous material. 'Perfect' I thought. Our table was born. Voila! From container to side table in minutes, it has garnered Rave Re:views.

Design Tip: Boxes, baskets, umbrella stands, large vases or containers have the potential to be reinvented as tables that are functional, original, current and inexpensive. Can't afford a new side table or can't find one that works for you, don't flip out, flip over!