jeffpeletz@startmail.com
Tale of Two Tables 4k
Pictured are two coffee tables. The square one is my old living-room coffee table, bought back in the early 1980's from a local Scandinavian design-centric store called Scandesigns. I'm not sure if they're still in business these days but back then, Scandinavian furniture was all the rage because of the beautiful and incredibly durable and exotic Teak wood that most of it was said to be made from. I remember when I bought it, with money from one of my first jobs after high school and 40 years ago, spending $250 on a coffee table was a major purchase for me and this was my first "real" piece of decent furniture I bought from my own sweat and hard work. All of my other furnishings were either hand me downs or the real cheesy particle/press-board type stuff with the fake plastic wood grain finish. I hated that stuff then and now because it falls apart if you look at it wrong and won't hold a wood screw because its too weak of a material to withstand even minimal over tightening.
So I've had this square table that was originally designed to work with those L shaped sectional couches which I had back in the day but it got worn out over the years and needed to be pitched. My next couch, the blue 3 seater in the picture really demanded a more traditional rectangular coffee table but I held fast to the old one because it was so rock solid and easy on the eye with its "Afromosia" teak construction. This particular type of Teak is said to be on the watch list of tree species which have been over harvested and in some level of danger if it is not more strictly managed. So I now kind of feel bad for being one of those millions of people who also loved the look of Teak and those funky modern Scandinavian designs and we collectively fueled this era of over harvested exotic tree species. Though really, how much teak lumber is consumed by home furnishings compared to teak's original fan base: ship and boat builders! Teak is of course the top choice in wood for that crowd because of its natural resistance to rot and warpage from exposure to water. I'd guess the consumption ratio is somewhere around 100 to 1 or higher of a boat verses a table or two in some households in some limited markets. My guilt is somehow now relieved a bit! :)
Afromosia teak is not actually considered the "real" teak though. That designation belongs to a different species of teak called "Burmese" Teak which is native to southern Asia but is also grown in other tropical locals of the world in Africa and south America. This wood is not listed on any current watch lists that I am aware of. The second coffee table in this picture would appear to be made from that stuff as it has a more normal curvy kind of grain which looks very similar to walnut but is said to be a more rot and warp resistant and more dense than walnut, which is also no light-weight. This table was yet another rescue piece from my building's recycling service yard. The previous owners decided to just get rid of it but were kind enough to dissemble it down its main components and put all the original hardware, screws and brackets into a plastic bag and taped it to one of the base frame's cross member pieces. Maybe because this table was pretty badly marked up with various pen, pencil and paint blotches and drawn lines that their kids no doubt put there when they were playing, painting and drawing pictures over the years. So it looked to be in pretty rough shape and most every mark and stain that I managed to remove, required some serious "mantastic" scrubbing effort to remove. Mr. Clean 4X erasers were also expended in that clean up which took about 3 hours of hard work to make it look nice again. So I could see why they gave up on it and just tossed it. Some of those marks were real eye-sores because of the ink and paint's color pigments which were tightly bonded to the wood's finish and remained highly visible and distracting to the look of the table, which is otherwise a massively large 2 by 5 foot slab of luxurious lumber lust! lol
But now I have an extra square coffee table and that gave me the idea to just replace the 4 shorter, 16" tall legs with some kitchen table height ones, which are are roughly twice that height and then I'll have a perfectly good smaller kitchen table which I've been wanting to replace as my old one is one of those 70's fake wood/arborite deals and looks horribly dated and cheesy.
Cheers! :)
Tale of Two Tables 4k
Pictured are two coffee tables. The square one is my old living-room coffee table, bought back in the early 1980's from a local Scandinavian design-centric store called Scandesigns. I'm not sure if they're still in business these days but back then, Scandinavian furniture was all the rage because of the beautiful and incredibly durable and exotic Teak wood that most of it was said to be made from. I remember when I bought it, with money from one of my first jobs after high school and 40 years ago, spending $250 on a coffee table was a major purchase for me and this was my first "real" piece of decent furniture I bought from my own sweat and hard work. All of my other furnishings were either hand me downs or the real cheesy particle/press-board type stuff with the fake plastic wood grain finish. I hated that stuff then and now because it falls apart if you look at it wrong and won't hold a wood screw because its too weak of a material to withstand even minimal over tightening.
So I've had this square table that was originally designed to work with those L shaped sectional couches which I had back in the day but it got worn out over the years and needed to be pitched. My next couch, the blue 3 seater in the picture really demanded a more traditional rectangular coffee table but I held fast to the old one because it was so rock solid and easy on the eye with its "Afromosia" teak construction. This particular type of Teak is said to be on the watch list of tree species which have been over harvested and in some level of danger if it is not more strictly managed. So I now kind of feel bad for being one of those millions of people who also loved the look of Teak and those funky modern Scandinavian designs and we collectively fueled this era of over harvested exotic tree species. Though really, how much teak lumber is consumed by home furnishings compared to teak's original fan base: ship and boat builders! Teak is of course the top choice in wood for that crowd because of its natural resistance to rot and warpage from exposure to water. I'd guess the consumption ratio is somewhere around 100 to 1 or higher of a boat verses a table or two in some households in some limited markets. My guilt is somehow now relieved a bit! :)
Afromosia teak is not actually considered the "real" teak though. That designation belongs to a different species of teak called "Burmese" Teak which is native to southern Asia but is also grown in other tropical locals of the world in Africa and south America. This wood is not listed on any current watch lists that I am aware of. The second coffee table in this picture would appear to be made from that stuff as it has a more normal curvy kind of grain which looks very similar to walnut but is said to be a more rot and warp resistant and more dense than walnut, which is also no light-weight. This table was yet another rescue piece from my building's recycling service yard. The previous owners decided to just get rid of it but were kind enough to dissemble it down its main components and put all the original hardware, screws and brackets into a plastic bag and taped it to one of the base frame's cross member pieces. Maybe because this table was pretty badly marked up with various pen, pencil and paint blotches and drawn lines that their kids no doubt put there when they were playing, painting and drawing pictures over the years. So it looked to be in pretty rough shape and most every mark and stain that I managed to remove, required some serious "mantastic" scrubbing effort to remove. Mr. Clean 4X erasers were also expended in that clean up which took about 3 hours of hard work to make it look nice again. So I could see why they gave up on it and just tossed it. Some of those marks were real eye-sores because of the ink and paint's color pigments which were tightly bonded to the wood's finish and remained highly visible and distracting to the look of the table, which is otherwise a massively large 2 by 5 foot slab of luxurious lumber lust! lol
But now I have an extra square coffee table and that gave me the idea to just replace the 4 shorter, 16" tall legs with some kitchen table height ones, which are are roughly twice that height and then I'll have a perfectly good smaller kitchen table which I've been wanting to replace as my old one is one of those 70's fake wood/arborite deals and looks horribly dated and cheesy.
Cheers! :)