Carafe Table

A versatile table with thoughtful storage

Carafe Table

Whether you’re working, playing, creating, conversing or hosting dinner guests, you’ll find the Carafe Table designed by Charles Wilson is equally adept at enabling all these activities. A versatile table for urban living, Carafe provides an attractive and adaptable surface for working or entertaining, along with thoughtful storage features. It’s a new take on the traditional communal dining table.

Flexible function

Compact apartments that are so much a part of urban living require every space and surface to be flexible in function. To address this need, the Carafe Table was designed to merge the functions of the kitchen bench top and the work desk, and transform easily between working and dining modes. Discreet drawers address storage, giving you convenient places to put objects as varied as cables or cutlery, paperwork or linens. Devices are subtly connected to power sources through cut-outs in the drawer bases. Like the communal vessel from which the table takes its name, Carafe embodies the convivial spirit present when family and friends gather.

A residential setting featuring a black Carafe Table complemented by a black Mirra 2 office chair and two Eames Moulded Wood Chairs.

A smartphone and laptop computer charging atop a black Carafe Table.

Versatile for urban living

When designing Carafe, Sydney, Australia-based designer Charles Wilson reflected on how he lives and works. “In my inner city apartment, the dining table is the most utilised piece of furniture. It’s the centre around which all activity revolves. During the week, it’s my workstation, a quiet place from which I look out to the harbour, reflect on my designs and perfect their production. At the weekend, it’s the gathering place for family and friends who drop in, kids in tow, everyone pitching in preparing food and mixing drinks.”

Architectural in form

Inspired by traditional Vietnamese architecture, in particular the timber fishing huts that designer Charles Wilson saw while visiting South East Asia, the Carafe Table is tall and lean, as if perched on pylons. Its broad, faceted main drawer slides out from both sides of the table, making it perfect for storing work supplies or dining accoutrements. Cantilevered shelves at either end allow for additional storage. As Wilson notes, “A good dining table should be able to seamlessly segue from functional work top to elegant entertaining surface, and back again. It should look as good laden with documents or dinner as it does sparse or bare.”

Partial view of a Carafe Table with a medium wood finish, the main drawer open to reveal household items inside.

The main drawer of a medium wood Carafe Table, open to reveal a charging smartphone and other items inside.

Dining table as utensil

Technology has liberated modern professionals from the 9-to-5 grind, allowing them to work when and where they choose. Given this reality, designer Charles Wilson saw the need for a table that efficiently adapts to the demands of urban living. He says that while, “There is no one perfect dining table, a good design is like a snapshot of our needs. The Carafe Table addresses the complexity of our working and family lives, redefining the dining table as a utensil.”