If you’re planning on hosting a crowd, now’s the time to figure out what tables you’ll serve everyone on, and where the guests will sit…
Here’s our best mostly makeshift ideas.
Ad hoc seating options includes our favorite bench made of chairs designed by Kei Okano. It requires a wooden plank, found, unearthed from the garage, or bought at Home Depot. Magazines are perfect for getting your chairs the right height.
The liberating rule of thumb: nothing needs to match…neither tableclothes, nor napkins, nor dishes, nor CHAIRS…Ask friends or neighbors to bring one.
Stacks of oversize art books morph into excellent stools. Magazines strapped-together with a belt work fine (no platform needed):
We keep a stack of Ikea’s bent plywood Frosta stool — a knockoff of the famous Alvar Aalto stool —on hand for impromptu parties. For plywood stools in a hurry, you can order them from Amazon fast and just as cheap.
If you need a big table for everyone to sit at OR similar-size, same height tables pushed together make for great huge dining table:
You’ll find instructions here for making a REALLY long table out of two sheets of plywood end to end using smaller table as “bases“(saw horses would also work)…
Cover it with several table cloths or Kraft paper and no one will ever know you’ve completely rigged it…
A friend figured out a clever way to make a big round top to seat twelve or fourteen; it would fold out-of-site when not in use.
As the resourceful Snoopy discovered, a ping-pong table makes a great dining table.(Video link here.)
