Teak Coffee Table with Spindle Gallery

The top is flat and wide with a small lip on the edge, so the chai cups and the plate of biscuits and the laptop all fit at the same time and nothing slides off. There is no carving on it and no tile on it, which is good, because a coffee table top gets used every day and a plain top can be wiped in 1 second.

Under the top there is a gallery, which means a row of small turned pillars going all the way around and between them the tiles. The tiles are painted with a pink lotus on a yellow ground, 3 on each long side and 1 on each short side and they are set into the wood so they sit flush and do not stick out to catch a knee. This gallery is the part that makes the table look old style, the way tables in the big houses of Chettinad and Kerala have looked for 100 years, while the plain top keeps it looking modern. So it goes with old furniture and with new furniture both.

The shelf underneath is the full size of the top, so it is a proper second table under the first one. Newspapers go there, the magazines, the box the TV remote lives in, the children's colouring books and because the gallery is in front of it, half of that is hidden from the sofa. You get a place to put things and the room looks tidier without you doing anything.

The legs are turned, thick at the top and thinner going down, with a round foot at the bottom and the whole table stands steady on tile floor and on carpet both.

Whoever comes to your home is going to bend down and look at the tiles, that much is certain and then they will ask where you got it.