When Connie found this coffee table at a thrift store, it was in pieces and the tabletop, meant to open to accommodate a leaf, was nailed shut. Though this bulky wooden piece had seen better days, it was clearly a sturdy table with a lot of life left in it — it just needed a little love and attention.

Connie wanted to highlight the routed detail of the table so she used putty to fill in the split down the center to create a solid base. She then began using modge podge to attach pages from a thrift store book of Shakespeare's plays to the center of the table. Once the center detail was full, she trimmed the excess paper and modge podged some more. After painting the remainder of the table black, Connie decided to seal the center one final time. Using a pour-on high gloss finish, she sealed the pages while also raising the height of the center to match the rim of the table.

The contrast of the white page margins cutting randomly through the overlapped blocks of text adds a large graphic element to the table from far away; up close, it offers the chance to lose yourself in the wonderful poetry of Shakespeare.

See More: Sensible Redesign: Shakespeare's Coffee Table

Images: Connie/Sensible Redesign