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Creative uses for a side table

What if you are looking for decorating ideas and you come up blank? Consider these suggestions to breathe new life into a displaced end table.

• Place a side table outside the front door. Use it to support a potted plant during warm weather months or for holiday decorations throughout the year.

• If you need a central place to store things the children share, put a side table between their bedrooms. Socks, crayons and coloring books and DVDs that are moved between rooms will have a permanent place to live.

• Place one inside the front door to store keys, outgoing mail, and sunglasses. If you have a shelf underneath, keep your bag there.

• Place a table in your hallway under something that is hanging on the wall: a painting, a mirror, a photograph. Furniture anchors the artwork and keeps it from looking like it’s floating in space.

• If you have a small conversation area somewhere in your home, use a side table instead of a coffee table so there is room for your drink, your book, or your cell phone.

• If you have a side table with a shelf underneath, use it as a small bookcase. This could work in the kitchen for cookbooks.

• If you have a side table with a drawer or doors, place it in the bathroom to store toiletries and toilet paper. If you have a shelf, you can store magazines or one of those essential bathroom reader guides. You can use it to store folded towels and washcloths next to the tub.

• How about equipping a table with a beach basket or bucket in the boys’ bathroom and using it to store bath toys?

• Place one near where children do their homework and your students will understand where to look for their homework.

• Do you have a dressing room that needs a more structured space? Put a side table there and use the table top to store your wallet, cell phone, and jewelry – the things you carry with you every day.

• Place one at the bottom and top of the stairs to store the things you need for a trip to the other floor.

• Put one in the laundry room to store detergent, dryer sheets, and stain removers.

• If it is old and worn but still sturdy, move the table to the garage. Use it to store your gardening tools, grocery or umbrella recycling bags, CDs, and shopping bags with return items, those things that need to be returned to your car.

• Use a weatherproof metal and glass side table outside on the patio. It can hold the boombox or sunscreen.

• If you like to barbecue, put one near the grill to store tools, platters and sauce when you’re busy cooking.

• If you have an outdoor bar, use a side table with doors to store bar equipment and supplies.

If you have a nice piece of furniture but it doesn’t match your décor, do a little practical work on it.

• Sand the stain and cover the table with polyurethane to match the rest of the furniture in the room.

• Gather a collection of photos and other paper memorabilia on the table and cover it with a piece of tempered glass.

• Sand the table and paint it to coordinate or contrast with the decor in your children’s room. Chalkboard painting would be a fun option for a budding artist.

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