Dear Craigslist: We Need A Coffee Table. Now.

Dear North Jersey Craigslist,
We need a coffee table in our Study.  Now.

Our study is our reading room, computer room, television room,
and often it's where we catch a light supper together.
It's full of stuff.  Good stuff, but stuff.  And it needs a sturdy coffee table!

Our last coffee table was a big big architect's chest,
early 20th century, that belongs to our daughter Anne.

The chest, at an estate sale in Philadelphia, a couple of years ago.
No one wanted it so Anne, who had helped out at the sale, got it. Free.

 It now lives happily in her apartment in Washington DC.

The coffee table before that was a Hooker.

(Yes, I know.  I laugh every time.)

Anyway, it was a large, square chow table, made by Hooker Furniture,

and it cost me 99-cents on eBay.
It served us well, and just about the time we donated it to
Goodwill, it came roaring back into the pages of home dec magazines,
Who knew?

Before the Hooker, there was the Bootlegger.
A Craigslist find, this Art Deco table was sleek and held a really neat secret.


If you pushed in those end panels, they rotated, and
presto-chango!  You had a hidden bar, revealed.

How cool is that?
A bootlegger's dream coffee table.
Sleek and good looking, it was too small for the room.
I think this is at my sister's now.

However - to haul us back to the problem at hand - since the end of August, 
we have not had a coffee table in the Study.  We need one.
My feet are just hanging off the sofa, dangling.

O Great Craigslist Gods ... do your thang!

(A quick look at the North Jersey CL listings yielded these tables,
all cheap enough to make me happy.  Although nothing beats 99 cents. Except free.)

Slate tile top, metal frame.  Dated, but practical.  Good colors for our room.

The new table must be big.  No dainty tea tables need apply.
Big enough to accommodate all the glasses and plates of
the young'uns at parties and holidays, and our feet the rest of the time.

Glass or stone tops work nicely.  No coasters.

I don't mind painting to get the right color.
(The one, above, is crying out for paint to cover its
not-vintage-in-a-good-way 80s Miami Vice frosted color.
I can see it brick red.  Or black. Or almost anything!)

Some really nice burled wood in this table.
Very much like the old credenza our TV lives on, including the fluting.

Below, a glass and steel example from Pottery Barn.
I like the minimalist look; we've got so much stuff in the Study,
this could be a welcome break in all the pattern and color.
(And it's a great price, too!)

Hmm ... Not sure about wanting that lower level.  Dust.  Dog hair.  Dang!

So many tables!  And loads more,
especially when I expand my search to the rest of New Jersey,
or nearby Pennsylvania, or Westchester, or New York City . . . .

Whatcha think?
What would you choose? Any ideas?

What do you look for in a casual, family room coffee table?
Happy Friday, my dears -- Cass

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