Do you have a piece of furniture that tells a story?

It always takes a while for a new story idea to germinate, and with my next Open University creative writing assignment due next week, I was starting to fear the blank page.  Then on Friday, as two of my friends and I watched our children playing under my kitchen table, an idea for a short story began to take shape. The children pulled off the wipe clean tablecloth to make a better den, and suddenly the old antique table was naked for the first time in years. 

My friend was quite taken by the table - despite it's lines, scars and dodgy legs - and by the idea that objects have a story.  (I, on the other hand, secretly covet her stylish, modern and hugely practical home).  She began telling me about someone she knew having a table a baby was born on.  Then another story about an antiques dealer who felt so guilty about making money from other people's objects that she gave huge amounts of money to charity.  My fingers were itching for my notebook.

I tried to piece together the story of our table.  We bought it on eBay for £100, I think it's Victorian, it's farmhouse style with a drawer at each end.  The woman who sold it to us was having a baby and felt the cracks in the top, and holes left by woodworm weren't very hygienic. We were child free and I thought it had character (Mr A thought it was totally impractical and has had to take it apart many times to move house).  It belonged to the woman's grandmother, I could see she was sad to part with it, and she emailed me an account of it's history a few days after we took it away.  Why I never printed that email I don't know.

The children playing under it also made me think of people sheltering under the table during the war.  I finally put all the ideas in my notebook on Friday evening, and over the weekend my subconscious has definitely been marinading them.  I have lots of threads which I am playing around with in my notebook this morning.   

I have realised throughout my Creative Writing diploma that to write you have to be like a magpie, daily life is packed full of shiny snippets of stories. My other friend is a nurse in A and E, and she saves me glimpses into her shifts - sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes life affirming - these glimpses have inspired two other pieces of writing.

On another note, while doing some 'research' I found this very similar but longer Victorian table on eBay for £995.  As well as being a good den and a source of inspiration, it was a sound financial  investment too. Shame it's not the most practical table, but hey, you can't have it all.

Do you have a piece of furniture that has a story to tell? I would really love to hear it.