Downtown Luxury Slum

Meanwhile, back at the Downtown Luxury Slum, we finally have a coffee table that fits the space.

Here’s what we’ve been living with for the past 2 years:

That’s right. We’ve had two non-matching Ikea Lack tables. Aren’t they beautiful? Sometimes I cover them with wrapping paper so they look fun and match.

But I’ve been wanting a nice big central table that is big enough for the entire room to share and that seems to be too big of an ask if I don’t want to drop $5000 on it (and I don’t). After putting more thought into it, I do appreciate having two separate tables because it allows a little more flexibility with being able to move them for whatever reason. So I decided to try to make something.

That’s not what I made. That’s what I paid too much for two of at the Habitat Restore because I was out shopping during the pandemic, wearing my mask, and not getting enough oxygen to my brain.

But anyway, it’s clearly way too tall but the top of it is more in proportion with the room and couches. So I ripped off the legs and used the top for my new creation.

First I got some new black powder coated steel legs from Etsy and attached them. Then my instinct went straight to making a wood table top, but since it’ll be so close to the wood floors, I wanted to do something different. I like the idea of glass or clear acrylic because they wouldn’t obscure the view of Gary, our cow rug. But both seem like they’d be a pain to keep clean, glass seems like I’d be too likely to break it, and acrylic just seems too futuristic for this house. Eventually I wound up deciding on copper!

I ordered a roll of 10 mil copper sheeting from Basic Copper and used it to wrap the table top. This is my ugliest corner that I’ve chosen to photograph and show you. For context, 10 mil copper is much thicker than aluminum foil so it’s fairly rigid, but it is still pliable and and can be cut with scissors. I chose this thickness because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to seal the copper with some sort of protective sealant to protect it from oxidizing or if I wanted to allow it to take on a patina over time. With thinner copper sheets, a sealant would have been a requirement. However, I’m starting to think I want to lightly hammer it for more texture and then seal it. Then I’ll probably get a thinner copper sheet for the second table, which I’ll build to be slightly higher than the first so that one can partially slide under the other when we want to get it out of the way.

PS. Don’t mind that the furniture all appears to be covered in protective plastic – it’s double sided tape to prevent Spritz! from clawing it, so instead she just licks it because she apparently loves the taste of the adhesive.