Creative Factor Editor Matt McCue Endorses…the X-Leg Painter’s Table
We share recs about our favorite products and the stories behind how we use them. Design by Barbara Cadorna.
Our Editor has lugged his X-leg painter’s table to three different New York apartments—true devotion. Read on for why he loves it so much.
About three apartments ago, I bought a white, X-leg painters table from Crate & Barrel that now sits in my home office. Any New Yorker knows you have to truly love something to schlep it from one home to another. And I love it, though I always wish it came from a groovier design boutique, or was discovered in a flea market, or was handmade by monks in the Hudson Valley with some unbelievable backstory, like they only work at night under the full moon while drinking their pappy’s pappy’s moonshine because it heightens their focus. Something like that.
Part of my reason for loving this table is that I detest most traditional corporate desks. They’re always too small, filled out with cheap plastic and filing cabinets. I haven’t used a filing cabinet in years. My docs have to physically be on my workspace to be on my radar.
That’s another reason I like the painter’s table. It’s nearly five-feet wide, and I can spread out: Macbook, notepad with my to-do list, iPad as second screen, and plenty of sharp pencils. Everything fits. And that’s also a problem. Its size makes no sense in its current space. I have somehow squeezed it in between the edge of my bed and the outer wall. The wall air conditioner unit juts out, making it nearly impossible to sit comfortably. The Wi-Fi doesn’t consistently reach this corner of the apartment. And, since I go into the office pretty much daily, I only use it a few hours a week. It would be practical to replace it.
But no. It’s where I wrote my first published story (interviewed Jimmy Buffett!), finished my book, and started a company. It’s where I’ve reinvented my storytelling self from writer to editor to entrepreneur to founder.
Hemingway wrote standing up, while, in her later years, Virginia Wolfe plied her trade in a low armchair with a plywood board across her knees, which sounds both incredibly uncomfortable and decidedly on-brand.
Meanwhile, the six-foot-six-inch author Thomas Wolfe is said to have written his autobiographical novels using the top of the refrigerator as his desk. Whatever works!
My preferred routine is the BIS method: Butt-in-Seat. I sit and write until I’ve finished something. And forget the plywood board or the refrigerator. My painter’s table is good enough for me.
Try It Yourself: The exact X-leg painter’s table is no longer available. Ugh. So here is another option should you find yourself in need of one. Slightly more rustic and on sale, too.
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