everything has a story: bedside tables (updated)

(update at the bottom)


I absolutely adore this pair of antique teak and marble-top pub tables from Singapore that we use for our bedside tables. 
(Note the wear on the table base after years and years worth of shoes wearing down the stretchers and chairs hitting the insides of the legs.)

this is my bedside table...

this is Dan's bedside table...

We purchased the tables, plus one more, from our favorite importer in Seattle when we lived in Dallas.  I desperately needed fresh merchandise for my antiques business, so we flew up to Seattle for the day- flew up that morning, shopped all day and flew home that night!
(Please do not ask me about the dining-size table like these two that I didn't buy...  it makes me cry, which makes my mascara run, which makes me look like a clown-   it's not pretty...  anyway, please don't ask;)
My plan was to keep one table and to sell two.  Plans are meant to be changed, yes?!  After getting the tables home I easily found places for two of the tables in the house (in Dallas they were in different rooms) and ended up selling only one.......   quickly and for a lot of money.  (I tell you that only because it comes into play later;) 
The teak table bases were a icky, gunky mess and after trying several methods Dan decided that the only way to thoroughly clean them was to take them to a car wash and use a high-powered sprayer on them! (do not try this at home;) 

My (much older;) sister, Susan, came to visit us in Dallas and fell in love with the tables too!  With the "sold" table long gone, I had to explain that she would have never paid the price I had to put on it to pay for the two I kept and my trip!!  That didn't make her feel any better-  she coveted the tables and would go on and on and.....  during each visit about how much she wanted one.

Time went on, lots of time and about two years later Dan and I were walking the antiques shop where my business was and low and behold we spotted a table that looked EXACTLY like our tables.... could it be?!!  Dan looked at the base trying to recognize any signs that it was "our" table. 
It was. 

Come to find out the designer who bought the table from me purchased it for a client.  Said client lived with it for about two years before re-decorating again, and the table was to be sold!!!  The designer, now a new antiques dealer, wanted the management to call me and find out how much I had sold it to her for because she couldn't remember, and she didn't know how much to ask for the table.

Unfortunately for her, my memory momentarily failed me and I just couldn't for the life of me remember!!! (hey, it's not my job to keep her books;)  She put a price on the table that was much lower than I sold it for!  One phone call to my sister and the table was SOLD.
 
The third table is now back in the family and happily resides in Austin!! 

Here it is in Austin!!!