Our lower level living room has been a work in progress since we moved in – I’ve been putting it together slowly with pieces that I love. We just added a beautiful new coffee table in the living room and I am head over heels for it! It was a custom project, and it turned out even better than I had envisioned!
A big thank you to J Thomas Home for making our new coffee table! *Coffee table was gifted but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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I hope you’ll check out some of my other posts while you’re here, too!
See my DIY projects and inspiration [here]
Check out a home tour [here]
Check out some fashion posts [here]
Our home has two living areas – one right off of the kitchen (see that room here) and one on a lower level. I love having two spaces for people to gather when we have company over., but I’m not going to lie…having two living rooms seemed a little daunting when it came to decorating! They’re close together – you can see one from the other, so I wanted them to “flow” together without clashing.
I put the first living space together really quickly because our home was being featured in a magazine and I didn’t have much turnaround time. It turned out SO well! But for this second living area, I have kind of been taking my time piecing it together. We were in desperate need of a coffee table for the room after I moved some furniture around and decided to use our other one on the side of the couch.
Here’s what the room looked like a few months ago – the furniture was arranged differently which allowed for a smaller coffee table. But when I moved the couches, it really opened the space up…and we suddenly needed a bigger table.
You can see what the room looked like right before we brought in a carpet and the table here.
Enter: J Thomas Home
They reached out a while back and said they’d like to build a custom piece for us…and immediately my mind went to a coffee table.
We had a vintage rug in the middle of the room, and I was planning on cozying everything up by layering a huge, neutral carpet underneath it. All we needed was the table to pull the space together.
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4412-650x975.jpg)
Thy invited us to come check out their showroom and to look at all of their wood types and stain options. While I did have a design idea in mind for the table, I’m not super knowledgeable about different types of wood…so I was a little nervous about choosing the right one. J Thomas Home was extremely helpful and knowledgeable, though, and made the whole process super easy.
We ended up choosing hard maple wood with a natural finish, and it’s honestly even better than I imagined it would be.
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4414-650x975.jpg)
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4410-650x975.jpg)
J Thomas Home is a family owned business. I stay home with both of my kids full time right now, so each time I went in to the showroom, they came along. They were incredibly kind to the kids, showing us all around and just making it a really positive, stress-free experience (which can sometimes be a struggle with two young kids in tow!). Their attention to detail, fast response times to all of my questions, and just overall kindness were beyond impressive and I highly recommend J Thomas Home if you’re looking for any kind of custom-built furniture. They also have an Etsy shop – you can check that out here!
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4395-650x1006.jpg)
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4416-650x975.jpg)
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4408-650x975.jpg)
J Thomas Home also sent us progress pictures and videos throughout the process, which made the experience so much more fun.
Here’s what it looked like after it was built (pre-stain):
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_6526-650x867.jpg)
And then it got a coat of natural stain
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_6808-650x488.jpeg)
After the table was stained, we went in the the showroom to check it out in person just to make sure the stain color looked right (it was perfect!). I wanted it to tie in with our dining room table and the color turned out amazing.
So once the stain color was confirmed, the table got a protective clear coat on top:
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_7061-rotated.jpg)
![A new rectangle coffee table for our lower level living room - it was customed built by J Thomas Home and turned out beautifully! || Kansas City life, home, and style blogger Megan Wilson shares a new coffee table for her living room](https://lifeonshadylane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_4436-650x975.jpg)
Such a cool process designing and building my first custom piece of furniture, and I am so impressed with how painless and FUN J Thomas Home made it!
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I hope you’ll check out some of my other posts while you’re here, too!
See my DIY projects and inspiration [here]
Check out a home tour [here]
Check out some fashion posts [here]