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Honored Contributor
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Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?


@aroc3435 wrote:

@sfnative   Thank you.  This is a wonderful "walk back along memory lane" topic for me.  The coffee table itself was mahogany with a greek key inlay of gold around the border and a leather inset rectangular center.  It was perfect for this Victorian seven room house.  It held a large cut glass ashtray with the smaller matching ones on the side tables.  

 

Also gracing that table was a lustreware pale pink covered candy dish with individually wrapped hard candy inside, and a neatly folded (but well read) daily newspaper--always--since my father was a journalist and would bring one home early each morning after "putting the paper to bed".  In the summer an arrangement of my dad's prized roses would be added to this table's landscape. 

 

For the Thanksgiving and Christmas season a cut glass bowl of nuts and the obligatory matching nutcracker and pics and a fancy box of chocolates--Barracini's or Loft's were added.

 

The TV Guide would be on the side table near my dad's club chair.  We had those fold up metal TV tables in a stand tucked away and it was a treat on Friday nights to eat while watching TV instead of having a formal dinner in our dining room.

 

It was the first house my parents owned and I loved it then and now.  The happiest seven and a half years of my life were spent there, from age 3 and 1/2 to age 11.  I still dream of that house and live in it again many nights.


The home my Mom built in 1971 and we lived in until my Sr. year 1979/1980 I drive by from time to time.  I noticed a for sale sign go up in 2016 and decided to see if any photos were listed with the Realtor.  32 beautiful color photos.  I still have them saved on my favorite list and look at every once in a while.  So strange to see the changes made like even moving the location of the refrigerator in the kitchen.  But absolutely love seeing the things Mom did over the years which still remain.  You might luck out some day @aroc3435 and find photos of the home on the net.  Lovely story.

"Live frugally, but love extravagantly."
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Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?

Nothing on top ... it had a sort of carved/etched glass top.  It was only for "show."

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Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?


@Maestra1 wrote:

We didnt have a coffee table and were too poor to buy magazines.

 

I took magazines from the library's garbage bin if I had  something I had to make for school.

When I was a teen I would go to the library to read American Teen and 17 Magazines. Also, National Geopgraphic.


We didn’t have a coffee table either.  We did get Time Magazine and i remember my grandparents gave us a subscription to National Geographic.  We didn’t get the TV Guide either, we had the newspaper Sunday Guide.

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Registered: ‎12-28-2011

Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?

My mother loved the colors black and gold. Are coffee table was black and she put a beautiful big black and gold dragon on it. We didn't have a lot of money so my Mom would go to the swapmeet. Buy things, refurbish them and it look like we were rolling in the dough. I always said her best friends were her black and gold spray paint. Woman Very Happy

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Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?

I remember the family Bible being on the top of the coffee table along with the TV Guide and an ashtray.   Not sure why that ash try was there; my DF smoked but had an ashtray by his recliner.  And there was a dried flower arrangement on the table as well.  It got changed as it "grew tired" and also was changed out to a Christmas holiday  arrangement  during the season. 

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Posts: 1,515
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Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?

Our living room was for show and company only. It was French Provincial and all the furniture was very small. The room was decked out in pink and blue, so on the coffee table there was some type of pink hobnail Fenton glass candy dish, another blue frosted dish, and maybe a ceramic floral thing.

 

I have blocked most of it out of my memory, it was so horrible. Pink walls, dark rose sculptured wool carpet, and that French Provincial. Antiqued white shelving on the wall to hold Hummels, which broke when a friend of mine slammed the front door too hard.

 

And the lamps had plastic covers on them.

 

*shudder* I'm having flashbacks!

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Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?


@sfnative wrote:

@house_cat 

 

We had to move out-of-state for quite a few years, so bought a house - my dream house, really.

 

To cut to the chase, my living room was all ivory.  The sofa was somewhere between a U and V shape.  This was perfect for a round coffee table.  It took me nearly a year to find one, because I wanted one with a glass top, which was very limiting.  I ended up finding the most interesting coffee table at Dillard's (had never been in a Dillard's before) and, frankly, had an issue with the origin of part of the coffee table.*

 

Though not crazy about black wrought iron, the foundation of the table was beautifully designed and created by a fine metal worker.  The top was so special:  imagine a ring, 5" in width, made out of petrified wood,* which had somehow been bleached.  On its surface, an artist had used watered down paint to create a faint garland of flowers with leaves.  Very tastefully and artfully done.  Then in the large void in the middle, a round of tempered glass was inset to complete the table.

 

I loved that table and still do.  When we had to sell the house, the real estate market in that city had turned upsidedown and it took us 3 years to sell the house (meanwhile, we had moved back to CA, but this time to SoCal).  Without even discussing the matter with me, my husband made a deal to sell our house with a potential buyer - with a hitch.  The hitch was that everything in the house stayed in the house.  Everything!

 

I won't go into the dynamics of his decision, except to say that to this day I continue to miss my special coffee table.


@sfnative 

 

Afraid I would have had to renegotiate the deal.

We moved a lot, only one item I’ve loved long term is still with me, would really hurt to let it go.

"Animals are not my whole world, but they have made my world whole" ~ Roger Caras
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Posts: 5,258
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Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?


@Drythe wrote:

@sfnative wrote:

@house_cat 

 

We had to move out-of-state for quite a few years, so bought a house - my dream house, really.

 

To cut to the chase, my living room was all ivory.  The sofa was somewhere between a U and V shape.  This was perfect for a round coffee table.  It took me nearly a year to find one, because I wanted one with a glass top, which was very limiting.  I ended up finding the most interesting coffee table at Dillard's (had never been in a Dillard's before) and, frankly, had an issue with the origin of part of the coffee table.*

 

Though not crazy about black wrought iron, the foundation of the table was beautifully designed and created by a fine metal worker.  The top was so special:  imagine a ring, 5" in width, made out of petrified wood,* which had somehow been bleached.  On its surface, an artist had used watered down paint to create a faint garland of flowers with leaves.  Very tastefully and artfully done.  Then in the large void in the middle, a round of tempered glass was inset to complete the table.

 

I loved that table and still do.  When we had to sell the house, the real estate market in that city had turned upsidedown and it took us 3 years to sell the house (meanwhile, we had moved back to CA, but this time to SoCal).  Without even discussing the matter with me, my husband made a deal to sell our house with a potential buyer - with a hitch.  The hitch was that everything in the house stayed in the house.  Everything!

 

I won't go into the dynamics of his decision, except to say that to this day I continue to miss my special coffee table.


@sfnative 

 

Afraid I would have had to renegotiate the deal.

We moved a lot, only one item I’ve loved long term is still with me, would really hurt to let it go.


@Drythe 

 

Unfortunately, when my husband told me this, we were both already in California and he inserted this choice piece of information into a casual conversation.  I stopped talking, then asked him the status of the sale.  He said something to the effect that it was a "done deal. Couldn't sell the house without including all the contents."  Afraid I started yelling at him, which I had never done, asking him if he thought me a cretin.  What he said next was unbelieveable.  He said, "Well, I already told you this weeks ago," which was the boldest lie ever to leave his lips.  I had no legal recourse.

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Posts: 13,775
Registered: ‎07-09-2011

Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?


@sfnative wrote:

@Drythe wrote:

@sfnative wrote:

@house_cat 

 

We had to move out-of-state for quite a few years, so bought a house - my dream house, really.

 

To cut to the chase, my living room was all ivory.  The sofa was somewhere between a U and V shape.  This was perfect for a round coffee table.  It took me nearly a year to find one, because I wanted one with a glass top, which was very limiting.  I ended up finding the most interesting coffee table at Dillard's (had never been in a Dillard's before) and, frankly, had an issue with the origin of part of the coffee table.*

 

Though not crazy about black wrought iron, the foundation of the table was beautifully designed and created by a fine metal worker.  The top was so special:  imagine a ring, 5" in width, made out of petrified wood,* which had somehow been bleached.  On its surface, an artist had used watered down paint to create a faint garland of flowers with leaves.  Very tastefully and artfully done.  Then in the large void in the middle, a round of tempered glass was inset to complete the table.

 

I loved that table and still do.  When we had to sell the house, the real estate market in that city had turned upsidedown and it took us 3 years to sell the house (meanwhile, we had moved back to CA, but this time to SoCal).  Without even discussing the matter with me, my husband made a deal to sell our house with a potential buyer - with a hitch.  The hitch was that everything in the house stayed in the house.  Everything!

 

I won't go into the dynamics of his decision, except to say that to this day I continue to miss my special coffee table.


@sfnative 

 

Afraid I would have had to renegotiate the deal.

We moved a lot, only one item I’ve loved long term is still with me, would really hurt to let it go.


@Drythe 

 

Unfortunately, when my husband told me this, we were both already in California and he inserted this choice piece of information into a casual conversation.  I stopped talking, then asked him the status of the sale.  He said something to the effect that it was a "done deal. Couldn't sell the house without including all the contents."  Afraid I started yelling at him, which I had never done, asking him if he thought me a cretin.  What he said next was unbelieveable.  He said, "Well, I already told you this weeks ago," which was the boldest lie ever to leave his lips.  I had no legal recourse.


@sfnative 

 

I am sorry. 😐

Would have been yelling right along with you.

"Animals are not my whole world, but they have made my world whole" ~ Roger Caras
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Posts: 17,739
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: When you were a kid or teen, what was on your coffee table, if you had one?

A crocheted doily and a piece of art glass, my parents got for a wedding present