Tulip Pedestal Coffee Table

I’ve long admired the iconic look of a Saarinen pedestal table, commonly referred to as a tulip table.  I just love the simplicity and sleek classic style.  I knew right from the start that I wanted that style for a coffee table in our living room at the new house.

I like how this style of table leaves a lot of room at the bottom allowing more of your rug to show.  In our living room where I used a really light color on the walls I didn’t want a coffee table with a large heavy base to cover up one of the main color players, our deep red vintage rug.  Especially since I layered it over a larger natural fiber rug so visually there isn’t much of the red rug as is.

Since this is a table style I’ve admired for years I was originally planning to save up and splurge on the real deal.  Saarinen tables can be rather price-y; but I think for pieces you’ve loved and will love for years and years a design splurge is often the smart move as the quality of the real deal will be long lasting.

So we’ve lived for months and months without a coffee table in here at all.  I spent a lot of time searching Craig’s List and eBay hoping to snag a vintage piece all the while saving up to buy a new one.  And then one night a few months ago I stumbled upon the Lippa coffee table from LexMod and my wheels started turning.

I’d heard nothing but good reviews about LexMod’s quality, so I decided to go ahead and order the table from their site (they offer free shipping).  I figured worst case scenario if the quality is not very good I can always resell it on Craig’s List to recoup what I’d spent and just keep saving for the real deal.  It took a few weeks for it to arrive (but it’s hard to complain when you’re not paying anything for shipping), and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this table is good quality.

The base is really heavy, which was one of my main concerns.  Often times, with furniture knockoffs in general, they lack heft and are kind of flimsy, but this table is nice and sturdy with a strong base.  Plus it was a breeze to assemble.  I have zero complaints and am really pleased I decided to take a chance ordering it online.  It’s always hard to order furniture you’ve never seen in person.  I think Craig’s List and even local consignment shops as well as local Facebook selling groups make it a lot easier to sell things when they don’t work out, so I personally felt like knowing I’d have a back up contingency plan made it easier to give this table a go.  But the good news is this table is awesome and I saved a boatload so taking a chance paid off big time.

It’s really hard to tell this table apart from it’s inspiration.  The way this table connects to the top is a little different, but it’s not a big enough difference to throw me off this knock-off version.

I’m really pleased with the way it looks in our living room, and since I currently have bigger fish to fry in terms of designing my home it’s nice to have the look I was going for at a fraction of the price.  But I’m not going to lie, someday I’d still love to have the real thing because just like having a print of an art piece you love is great, nothing beats owning an original from an artist you admire.  This table works really, really well as a stand in until that day.