Scavenged faux-Saarinen table.

Even though we’ve driven by Hudson Valley Office Furniture in Newburgh dozens and dozens of times since we moved here, we never took the time to go in until last week. What an amazing place! They bill themselves as being a supplier of “nearly new” office furniture, but as it turns out, a good portion of their inventory is from the ’60s and ’70s. I started wishing I needed a Steelcase desk, because they had a million of them.

We spotted this Knoll/Saarinen tulip-style knockoff inverted on top of a pile of cabinets. The top is wood-grain laminate and the sides are peeling, but it looks easy to remove. We figured we’d bring it home and keep an eye out for a round marble remnant to replace it with. Not 5 minutes later, though, we found a piece of black marble in EXACTLY the right size (!) just hanging next to some coffee tables. Sold! (At a “just get it out of here” price, of course.)

I still have to unscrew the old top and get rid of it. It’ll look great when that’s done. The marble is heavy enough that I don’t think I’ll need to do much more than put a little Velcro underneath to get it to stay in place on the base.

I’m pretty excited about the shiny metal base, and the scratches don’t bother me at all. We’re planning to use this table outside, which I’d probably hesitate to do if it were the real thing (platinum base + black marble top = $759, or about 20x what we paid for ours).

Hooray for scavenging!