Tiptoe: Build Your Own Table

I love it when someone sends me details of a really good idea and this is a really good one. Like all the great ideas it’s really simple. I’m frankly baffled why I, a fairly simple person, can’t seem to come up with one of these. It’s like those people who say “Oh I couldn’t find the deckchair I liked so I set up a company making them and now I’m a gajillionaire”.

I’m sure there are things that I can’t find on a daily basis but instead of coming up with THE GREAT IDEA I seem to just swear a bit and carry out without it. Anyway, let’s show you this, cos it’s clever.

Tiptoe, a company based in Paris but shipping all over, manufactures metal legs in a variety of colours and two heights – coffee table/seating bench and dining table and then you simply find your top of choice and clamp it together. Simple non?

Firstly it’s a really affordable way to make a piece of furniture. Large dining room tables can cost hundreds of pounds or, the other way round, if you have a small space it can be hard to find the perfect size for your requirements. Secondly, you get to create a totally bespoke piece of furniture that no-one else will have. Thirdly, if you use a simple piece of wood you can paint or or change it whenever you like. Hell, you can keep the top and change the legs between summer and winter if you wanted. You can use it to make a desk in a kids room – start with the low set and then turn that into a stool and buy a taller set. God I wish I’d thought of this.

The two heights mean you can make a table and bench and add some stools. Or just a coffee table. Or a garden table – there are outdoor versions as well. And then the fun starts; your table can be temepered glass, or concrete, or a slab of wood, or the top of an old table that was the wrong height and you wanted to cut the legs off. Or a leftover piece of wood from something else, a metal grid as in the image above, a piece of marble, which would be cheaper to buy a slab than a whole table. The possibilities are endless.

Tiptoe sent me a set of legs to use in my garden. I’m currently looking for the right thing to attach them too. The other day I walked past a house that was being done up and there was a wonderful old pine door in the front garden. I think I’m going to go back and see if it’s still there…

They come in either 75cm or 40cm tall, a huge range of colours and cost just under €40 and just under €50 per leg, which is still pretty cheap for a table, especially if you can make the top from salvage. There are currently eight indoor colours and four outdoor but there are plans for new colours soon.