Do not apologise for the guilty pleasure of a TV dinner. Serve on these hard-working side tables
The evenings have drawn in, so it’s time to get better acquainted with your sofa.
That means parking any pretence of eating dinner at the table with napkins and sparkling conversation.
More likely you’re parked on the settee, eyes on the goggle box and a reheated meal in your lap.
It’s time to embrace the guilty pleasure and trade up. Serve your real meal on a purposely designed table suited to this single task.
Transformer table
Olserod is a cleverly composed table, designed to give you two options in one.
It can function as a smart side table that you slide in front of you while on the sofa, watching TV.
And when friends visit, it can be transformed into a more social surface, a stylish coffee-height calibration, a place you can share drinks.
It comes in anthracite grey or a birch top with a grey frame and costs €35 from Ikea.
Sloth style
Americans invented the TV dinner concept, so it is fitting that it is a USA brand, Lazy Jamie, that has turned its talents to appeal to a certain kind of stylish sloth.
It says its tables “are for indoor cats with urbane taste, girl dinners and grown women, happy meals with martinis, and escaping reality with bad reality TV”.
This costs about €520, ex delivery and can be ordered through US-based LazyJamie.com or UK-based Glasette.com.
Colour pop
This powder-coated steel table will slide in under the base of the sofa as easily as someone might slide into your DMs on a dating site.
Its circumference is small, really a TV drinking rather than a TV dinner table, but it comes in seven colour options, including the eye-catching curry yellow, shown, and a peony pink.
It costs about €90, ex delivery from Sklum.
Solid surface
This is a solid table on a steel frame. It measures 46 cm by 26cm, so it is big enough to fit a dinner plate and a drinking glass.
The oak marquetry top brings warmth and texture. Its slim frame slips right under your sofa and offers you the perfect place to place your laptop or favourite tipple.
It is currently reduced from €179 to €159 at the branches of EZ Living Interiors.
Mid-century vibes
The Karlee side table has a leather basket where you can keep the remote controls or extra napkins if the meal is particularly messy.
Set on a black metal frame, it has an MDF top and a mid-century sensibility.
It’s also a decent size, big enough to fit a large dinner plate and all the cutlery and stemware you need.
Measuring 38cm wide and 55 cm long, it costs €194 from Pieces.ie
Simple and brutal
Bo Concept’s Ottawa side table is unapologetically brutalist in shape and material.
Created by Egyptian-born, Canadian-raised American industrial designer Karim Rashid, it comes in a matt black lacquered steel form that is reminiscent of the 1980s. It costs €389.
