Advice for a World Famous Ugly Coffee Table

Everyone who reads this blog is probably aware that we are world-famous TV stars who executed a stunning, come-from-behind-victory on a very dramatic episode of Flea Market Flip.  (And if you have somehow missed that, check out our recaps of Buy Day, Workshop Day, and Sell Day… now, before we spoil it even more. Also you can watch it on Amazon for $1.99 if you’re really devoted fans.)

For anyone not familiar with the show, the basic idea is that two pairs of contestants go on, buy three items at a flea market, make them over in a day, and then sell them at a different flea market.  Whichever team makes the most profit (sales minus costs) wins!

What made our victory so dramatic is that our opponents sold all three of their pieces and we only sold two.  We had to have enough profit from those two pieces to cover the costs of all three, and then some.  We were pretty damn proud of ourselves (even though we liked our opponents quite a bit).

But within that immense sense of self-satisfaction there has been a tiny bit of shame and regret: we had a piece that didn’t sell.  Meet the offending coffee table:

World Famous Ugly Coffee Table: A History

We bought this piece on a very-fast-whim during our brief session of filming with Lara (the show’s host).  Basically she looked at it and said “that’s nice” and we were like OMG-YOU-REALLY-THINK-SO-?-WE’LL-TAKE-IT-!

We thought the glass top and claw feet were interesting and it’s a small piece that seemed like it would work well in NYC where apartments are tiny — we knew we’d be selling there — but when we actually got to look at it without the heat of the camera and glow of celebrity around us, we realized it was in worse shape than we originally thought.  The feet were cracking, the red paint was odd/flaky, the glass was slightly chipped, and the veneer was peeling.  Oops!

Still, we were on the show for makeovers, so that is what we did!  We cooked up a plan to create a pattern using adhesive vinyl, tested it, re-tested it, and then did our best to execute it on TV.  However, given the time constraints it was definitely a rush-job, and we didn’t get to do the detail work of patching up the damage on the table as much as we would have liked.  We also didn’t get to seal the red enough, so it leaked through and made the white paint faintly pink (which we tried to compensate for by color adjusting photos…….).

Suffice it to say we were not shocked when this was the piece we had the most trouble selling.  Even Lara commented that it was a “very particular piece.”  We did have an early offer which was really low that we turned down, and then weren’t able to drum up interest from there.

So where is the table now?

Yup, even the show didn’t want to keep it! They usually don’t let anyone bring home unsold pieces, but it was the last filming day of the season and they offered it up to us rather than carting it back to the workshop in Connecticut. It’s been lurking in Sage’s basement ever since and, strangely, all our proposals for people to buy a world-famous coffee table have been rejected so far (though as we were carrying it down the street in NYC to load it into the car someone stopped us and almost bought it).

So now we want REDEMPTION.  We need to purge the lingering guilt and shame from our otherwise pure victory.  But we’re frankly at a loss for what to do with it, and that’s where you come in!

World Famous Ugly Coffee Table: The Future Is In Your Hands

We need your advice on what we should do with the table from here to hopefully get it to a point where some reasonable person will take it out of Sage’s basement and put it in their home, possibly in exchange for money via craigslist.

Our initial ideas:

• Burn it
• Shrink it with a shrink ray and put it in the tiny blogger’s house as a joke
• Take it apart and reassemble  the pieces as something other than a coffee table
• ….that’s about it.

But you guys are super inventive and can probably think up some better options.  Take a close look and please tell us your ideas in the comments!  We’ll be getting together soon and will try to faithfully execute your best ideas in a “take two” makeover!