Utility is not sexy: The table pad

table pads

The biggest expanse of workable space we have is the dining room. It’s roomy, fairly open, and, of course, has a great big work table smack in the middle. Oh, I mean dining table. Except that I don’t.

Our dining table is beautiful. (That’s not it in the photo, FYI.) It was Beth’s 30th birthday present from her mom and is a totally grown-up, real, non-Ikea piece of furniture. Here in the small cottage though, we would be wasting a huge opportunity if all we used the table for was dining. That’s the coffee table’s job anyway.

So Beth introduced me to this awesome thing called a table pad. I guess people normally put them under tablecloths to protect against hot plates, scrapes, steaming casseroles, fork stabbings (forkings?), etc.  We, however, use ours as the forcefield barrier between a lovely mahogany finish and hot glue, xacto knives, paint, varnish, spray mount, sewing machines, screen printing ink, stencils, block prints, etching compound, dye, wax, scissors, and whatever else we might be working with at any given time. For about $200 we effectively created a workbench in the middle of our house. If you’re interested, just search “table pad” and you’ll find all kinds of places that will custom make one to match whatever table you want covered. Then you too can have two, two, two tables in one!