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Whatchamacallit 59: My Coffee Table.

Coffee Table

Back in 2012 I bought a new couch – getting rid of the two couches that had come to dominate my living room while being simultaneously ugly and decrepit.

With a new couch came the need for a coffee table – and I can tell you that I spent a great deal of time looking at coffee tables. Lots and lots of them. I haunted Berlin’s furniture stores – finding ugly coffee tables, big coffee tables, and none that were just right.

It was a frustrating search – and time consuming.

Eventually one of my colleagues suggested Dielerei – a Berlin-based custom furniture website/man who makes furniture out of old Berlin floorboards.

I contacted him, asked about getting a custom-made coffee table — 100cm x 40-45cm x 40cm – and was quoted 350€.

This was, for me, a reasonable price. I had been looking at coffee tables for weeks and had seen how expensive they all were. However, I still have a crystal-clear memory of telling one of my other friends how much I was going to pay for the coffee table – he was appalled. So, I suggested that he look at the price of coffee tables online: after about 5 minutes of looking furniture store websites, he turned to me and said, “I’m in the wrong business.”

This coffee table is, hands down, my favorite piece of furniture: during home office times, it is essentially my desk, sitting at the exact right height for working while sitting on the floor.

I love it so much that I hope that Dielerei will build me more furniture one day.


During the Covid-19 crisis, I am going to try and make a point of writing a blog post about an object in my home.

We’ll see how long this lasts.

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