The small picture on the left depicts a very simple kind of coffee table. You can tell that it's made of some cheap wood and that it's not very decorative at all. Coffee tables come in all shapes and sizes, usually made of some kind of wood, but not so much in recent years.

Wooden Coffee Tables

You'll be extremely lucky if you can find a new coffee table made of solid wood, straight from a tree. Most of what you see nowadays is made of some kind of wood grain laminated covering fiberboard or other kinds of pressed wood scraps.

Let's face it. Real wood furniture is extremely expensive. My bed frame is all solid wood and it cost me a pretty penny, so to speak. It's not even made of expensive wood.

When I was taking wood "shop" in high school, back in 1976, the preferred wood to use for coffee tables was called Koa, more appropriately "Acacia Koa". I was living in Hawaii at the time and they just called it "Koa".

At the time, while other kinds of wood suitable for furniture sold for 20 cents a board foot, Koa sold for 25 cents per board foot. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it was back in 1976. Anyway, I doubt they still prefer it because of how expensive it has become due to over logging and blight. That species is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and although there are Acacia trees where I live in the Philippines, the wood isn't the same as that obtained from the "Koa".

Glass Coffee Tables

The coffee table in my living room is made with aluminum legs supporting a glass tabletop. I'm starting to see these kinds of coffee tables everywhere furniture is sold, along with matching end tables.

Although I'd much prefer having a solid wood coffee table, I just can't afford to buy one. There's nothing wrong with glass tabletops unless you buy cheap coffee tables. The tabletop is usually very thick and isn't easy to break.

When I was growing up, my brothers and other male relatives would put their feet up on the coffee table at my parents' house. My parent always yelled at them that it wasn't a foot stool and to get their feet down.

Well, you can't do that with a glass coffee table unless you want to break it. Sure, you could get away with it for a while, but eventually you'd do something to separate the tabletop from the support beams and that would be the end of that.

The Invention of the Coffee Table

According to sources, the coffee table was invented in Britain during the Victorian Era, between June 1837 and January 1901. Perhaps it was invented specifically as a coffee table at the time, but I think similar tables were invented much earlier in the orient.

The Japanese, for example, have been using low profile tables, some that look like coffee tables, for centuries. They use them for dining and not as coffee tables. Speaking of dining, my wife and I used to dine from our coffee table when we lived in the US, before we owned our own home. We were eating while watching TV and we couldn't see the TV from wherever the kitchen table (if we had one) was.

Now, I'm sure that coffee tables are made of other things besides wood, glass and aluminum, but I can't think of anything right now. As for me, I hope to someday start building one out of empty coffee cans and jars. With as much coffee as I drink, it shouldn't take very long at all.

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