Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: tables

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

It was implied that you can't stack tables unless the legs fold. But you 
can. We have inexpensive IKEA wooden tables, of a size that seats one on 
each end and two on each side, approximately. The legs are straight metal 
cylinders, attached at the corners of the tables. One can simply invert one 
table on another (sometimes we carry them to another room, and put the 
second layer on this way). But I've seen many more tables stacked, by criss 
crossing them or offsetting them a bit: think of it as a puzzle! 

Those classic particleboard 6-foot folding tables are a great hazard: they 
are so heavy as to risk injury to those handling them, in several ways. If 
you want long folding tables, go for the hollow plastic ones that Costco et 
al sell (typically grey or tan- I think I've seen brown too.) They come in 
at least two sizes of rectangles, and in round. Very easy to manipulate, 
light enough to safely store on end in a tall closet, for example. They 
don't look very pretty, so might be used with table cloths, or covered with 
oilcloth. 

Not every table has to be stackable anyway. At RoseWind (to my delight) the 
first table to fill at every meal is the old oak table (round plus two 
leaves, becoming oblong) which was the dining table in my home growing up, 
originally from my grandmother's house. Even when there's an event where the 
place to pile things, or whatever. Seems like we always can use at least one 
table. In fact several of our wooden tables usually end up along the walls, 
even in a no-table cleared room. 

Our IKEA tables are identical, which allows various configurations. 

Lynn at RoseWind, Port Townsend WA