when I was about twelve a colleague of my dad’s gave me my first sea shell… it was an abalone from Florida where she had been on vacation…

ever since then I have collected shells… mainly from others who travelled all over the world, but some I have gathered myself…

since I was about twenty I have dreamed about a coffee table with a glass cover where I could put the shells so that they wouldn’t get dusty or dirty…

a couple of months ago I saw such a table at IKEA… it was fairly expensive and only came in an off-white colour…

today we were there again, and found the table in gray… gave in and bought it…

brought it home in two thin boxes and then Crystal put it together…

there were many, many pieces but she did a great job and got it together without a single extra piece…

then we spent some time reorganizing the living room, as the table takes up quite a bit of room…

next, will be digging out the box of shells and putting them into the drawer…

looking forward to it…