One of us cannot walk past a walnut console table without running a hand across it. Proper palm flat on wood, like she’s verifying that it’s still there, still alive. We stopped doing this when customers were around. We have not stopped doing this to each other and right now it’s less habitual than a character flaw with a personal commentary track.
Which is probably why we end up feeling pretty strongly about what is admittedly a simple purchase. Console tables sound optional until you need one, at which point they become the sinks of the hallway; all your keys live here, as does the post, one solitary glove and a candle no-one’s remembered to light since 2019. Walnut especially is king for hiding the onslaught of scuffs and clutter it collects; water rings, mug rings, thumbprints just kind of blend in aesthetically rather than looking like damage, which can be said for the sad birch pine version it preceded it in our hallway, which still mocks us by displaying every fingerprint ever laid upon it.
We love them because they’re effortlessly capable of elevating what’s usually a narrow, unloved stretch of hallway into something that actually feels considered – even if, in reality, no-one has given it any thought except to dump coats haphazardly upon it for the last six months.
We are not fond of console tables with the additional shelf below that theoretically are for shoes and baskets but end up housing all of your random stuff that didn’t have anywhere better to go; three different chargers that belong to different devices, one roller skate, your aborted attempt at turning your hallway into an organised space.
Some of us like their legs to taper slightly so it doesn’t look like someone leaned a giant cutting board up against the wall.
Others prefer legs that are as wide and stable as possible to survive the laundry-dominated groundpounding ourconsole table experiences on a daily basis because the hallway is also the home of two kids under the age of six who think furniture can be props in their fight scenes.
They both have said many words about their preference and yet still refuse to back down. Convert tables, however, have proven over time that you can still stand strong with either leg style.
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So fine, argument’s overかもしれない.
The palm-requiring-person has bought three of these now; at all three houses we’ve lived in together.
Continues to insist this was coincidence and clearly not at all a pattern we’re picking up on.
For internal tracking purposes we call her walnut console table III.
(It’s her third marriage.)
Looking at a console table online isn’t the true test. It’s halfway through year two, when your candle’s been replaced at least twice because obviously you didn’t actually burn them, the post pile has developed sentience and the table is still refusing to give up white as an act of defiance against being plastered with coats/fur/post parcels. That’s the part no-one thinks to take a picture of and honestly it’s the only part that matters.
Trust us, we know. Got slammed with doorframes once thinking matte was the future and regretted that decision the minute we realised how much fingerprints show up on matte. Never again. But when it comes to the wood, we will never abandon you, oak. Never since we first learned to appreciate a hallway will we stray. And that, again, is something we can say about few things in here.
