Elsie Side Table - Matt Ocean Marble - Matt Dark Oak

The Elsie Side Table in Matt Ocean Marble - Matt Dark Oak is 48cm square and 45cm high, with a stone top on a timber base. The colour names the stone first and the timber second, since the two are different materials. At 45cm it sits at seat height beside a chair.

Two materials on a piece this small is a risk that works when the join is clean. The stone reads as the surface and the timber as the structure, and neither pretends to be the other.

At 48cm square this is a table for a lamp and a drink rather than for one or the other. That is the size at which a side table stops being decorative, and it is worth the extra footprint beside a chair that gets used every evening.

The caveat is the stone. It is porous whatever the finish, so a wet glass left standing will mark it, and a stone top on a small table is heavy enough that the piece wants positioning rather than moving.