You'll never guess how the metallic spheres stay in place
By Amanda Sims, Architectural Digest
There are no tools required to complete this DIY. There are no difficult steps, no instructions to follow at all, in fact, but by the end of it you will have made a cool piece of furniture entirely by yourself. "I've always been a little bit of a DIY person," says Diana Yen, the multitalented personality behind food brand The Jewels of New York. When she and her girlfriend moved in together, they'd spent so much on the move they needed to find ways to save on the furniture (extremely relatable moment alert). Discouraged by the sky-high prices of even "affordable" furniture brands—and inspired by Faye Toogood's Element Table, a square sheet of glass perched atop a concrete sphere, cube, and cylinder—Diana set out to design and make a coffee table herself.
For the base, she needed three equal-height objects. What she decided to use is what makes the table so inspired. "I collect witches balls, or gazing balls," Diana says. "It's a spherical ball mirror, so you can see around the corner if someone is coming. There's a whole history of gazing balls; people hang them in barns to reflect bad spirits." We were not in the know about this delightfully shiny and symmetrical object, but apparently you can purchase them at gardening stores and even on Amazon Prime, where Diana procured three lightweight, hollow ones for about $40.
Also sourced on Amazon: the half-inch-thick glass topper, heavy enough to sit steady atop the witching balls, with a smooth polished edge. (Yes, she sourced all of the supplies for this DIY on Amazon.) You might be wondering how it sits so safely atop three spheres without the whole structure slipping apart and crashing to the ground? Only a prop stylist would have thought of this trick. "The last thing was how to keep the balls from rolling," she says. "I went to my friend's house, and she had this spherical soap that Golda makes, and she was like, 'Yeah, I set it on a baby's teething ring.'" To keep the witching balls in place, Diana bought three small wooden rings, dabbed them with epoxy glue, and set them under each witching ball. Coffee table, complete.
There are no tools required to complete this DIY. There are no difficult steps, no instructions to follow at all, in fact, but by the end of it you will have made a cool piece of furniture entirely by yourself. "I've always been a little bit of a DIY person," says Diana Yen, the multitalented personality behind food brand The Jewels of New York. When she and her girlfriend moved in together, they'd spent so much on the move they needed to find ways to save on the furniture (extremely relatable moment alert). Discouraged by the sky-high prices of even "affordable" furniture brands—and inspired by Faye Toogood's Element Table, a square sheet of glass perched atop a concrete sphere, cube, and cylinder—Diana set out to design and make a coffee table herself.
For the base, she needed three equal-height objects. What she decided to use is what makes the table so inspired. "I collect witches balls, or gazing balls," Diana says. "It's a spherical ball mirror, so you can see around the corner if someone is coming. There's a whole history of gazing balls; people hang them in barns to reflect bad spirits." We were not in the know about this delightfully shiny and symmetrical object, but apparently you can purchase them at gardening stores and even on Amazon Prime, where Diana procured three lightweight, hollow ones for about $40.
Also sourced on Amazon: the half-inch-thick glass topper, heavy enough to sit steady atop the witching balls, with a smooth polished edge. (Yes, she sourced all of the supplies for this DIY on Amazon.) You might be wondering how it sits so safely atop three spheres without the whole structure slipping apart and crashing to the ground? Only a prop stylist would have thought of this trick. "The last thing was how to keep the balls from rolling," she says. "I went to my friend's house, and she had this spherical soap that Golda makes, and she was like, 'Yeah, I set it on a baby's teething ring.'" To keep the witching balls in place, Diana bought three small wooden rings, dabbed them with epoxy glue, and set them under each witching ball. Coffee table, complete.
