BH | Studio Whitby Rattan Round Side Table

Rattan, the supple stem of a climbing palm, reached Western homes through nineteenth-century trade with Southeast Asia. By the late Victorian years woven rattan furniture had settled onto porches and into sunrooms across America and Britain, and it came back in force in the relaxed rooms of the 1960s and 1970s.

This one is a neat drum: a round top with a thick rolled rim, set on a single pedestal shaped like a clover and woven to match. With one central support, the top is clear all the way round, and the narrow base slips in close beside a sofa end or a chair, so the surface sits right where your hand falls. It weighs only a few pounds, easy to lift and carry with one hand, holds up to 44 lbs and arrives ready to use. The rattan is woven throughout, in Mink or Flax.

Keep it by a reading chair with a lamp, a glass of wine and the novel you are halfway through, or at the end of a sofa where it holds the remote and a bowl of nuts. It is just as good as a small bedside table in a guest room, and light enough to take out to a covered porch on a warm evening. The woven rattan looks rich next to cognac leather, olive green velvet and botanical prints.