It's been over a year and a half since I mentioned the first batch of odd coffee tables I stumbled across. Well, I've come across some really interesting coffee tables since then, some commercial and some homemade. The guys that built the homemade coffee tables even tell us how to make them (provided we can get the right stuff to build them with).

The LED Pinball Coffee Table

The LED pinball coffee table requires the use of a broken down pinball machine. The guy who built this one found a pinball machine at the dump and probably wanted to restore it initially.

The coffee table lights up, so it's definitely interesting to look at while you're sipping your coffee and I'm sure it makes a great conversation piece. It's just too bad he didn't make it completely functional – that would be a sight to behold – I'm sure it would cost way too much in reconditioned parts.

The NES Coffee Table

It doesn't matter what the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) coffee table is made of doesn't really matter. It's a fully functional system with a lap-sized controller. There are a whole bunch of extras built-in and you'll just have to check out mattcyborgelt's photostream on Flickr to get the details.

If you want to make something like this, I'm sure all you have to do is ask. To me, it doesn't look like it would be too expensive to be worth building. Of course, you have to be an avid gamer to want something like this.

The T3-Touch Coffee Table

The T3-Touch Table Top coffee table will set you back a bit. It appears to be designed for commercial establishments because this thing does it all.

It has a built-in 26-inch LCD screen and has access to everything you'd expect from a traditional PC. A little too rich for my blood, I'm sure.

The Sony Fusion Coffee Table

The Sony Fusion Coffee Table is more than just a concept. It's in production. When it becomes available, if it isn't already available, it'll cost about $3000.

This is a sleek, black coffee table that opens up electronically to reveal a complete PC workstation, including a touch keyboard. It's definitely a geek thing.

More?

I could do this all day, but I think you may be starting to understand what I'm driving at. If you look around on the net long enough, you'll see various examples of nontraditional coffee tables, some functioning as more than a coffee table and some not.

If you use your imagination, you can build (or have someone build) a coffee table as unique as you are. The only thing you really have to worry about is putting something in place that clashes with the rest of your decor.

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Of all the things I have around in my life, the last thing I need is some kind of oddity staring me in the face every day. Other people must not agree with me or they wouldn't come up with odd coffee tables like these.

Fish Tank Coffee Tables

You know, I like aquariums (fish tanks) as much as the next guy. I enjoy looking at multicolored fish almost as much as I like eating them. I don't know what to think about a fish tank coffee table though.

For some reason, I think it would be too distracting. I mean, I drink coffee while sitting on the sofa behind my coffee table and watching TV. The noise of the motor aerating the water or the little fishies poking their heads up at me and checking me out while I'm checking something else out might be more than I can take.

Odd Lion Coffee Table

I spotted an odd lion coffee table over at Boing Boing. For me, it's unnerving if not annoying.

I don't know if the lion staring up at me is worse than just the fact that it has a lion pecker on it. This is one case where being anatomically correct wouldn't suit me at all.

Mousetrap Coffee Table Robot

I think this kind of defeats the purpose of a coffee table. Mice gain access to an iris in the middle of the top of this mousetrap coffee table through a hole in one of the legs. It activates the robotic iris, luring a mouse into the pit with yummy mice stuff and then the robotic iris closes, trapping it until you take charge of the situation.

I sit behind a coffee table when I want to relax. Hearing the squeals of a trapped mouse would kind of kill the mood for me.

NES Controller Coffee Table

How would you like a dysfunctional yet functional coffee table? The NES controller coffee table is dysfunctional as a coffee table, yet functions like a real, oversized NES (the original Nintendo Entertainment System) controller.

Lucky for the real coffee table lovers, like me, that it's a custom-made one-of-a-kind coffee table. Too bad, so sad, for the salivating hardcore NES gamers out there.

Offside Football Coffee Table

For those of you who want sporty kind of coffee table, there's the Offside Football Coffee Table. Under the tabletop is a fully functional table football game, also known as foosball (US and Canada), fooseball, foozeball, fusball, fuseball, and table soccer and based on association football (soccer).

I can see the glass tabletop lasting about a week before a foosball fight causes it to break right down the middle, even less time if teenagers are involved.

Enough is Enough

I'm sure I can find more where those came from, but I'm tired of looking at odd coffee tables. Perhaps I'll revisit this topic later on (but don't count on it).

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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're looking for 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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