How to Adapt a Tilt-Top Table so You Can Compute from Your Recliner

I once ordered a glow-in-the dark clock advertised to have large luminous numbers that would tell you the time at any hour of the night you cared to look. The clock, which cost me $7.99, turned out to be only about half the size of the illustration and the glow in the dark feature only lasted about 4 hours---that is if you made sure to expose it to sunlight for most of the day.

There have been other things, many other things, over the years that did not live up to the rapturous descriptions found in mail-order catalogs. However, I just can't seem to resist taking a peek at each new one that crosses my desk.

Recently, the Carol Wright Gifts catalog came up with an item I hadn't seen before. A tilt-top table that adjusted from 26 to 40 inches, tilted 90 degrees in either direction, and swiveled to the left or to the right. Its top measured 15 by 22 inches, it had rolling casters, and it folded for compact storage.

Would you believe that the asking price for this nifty little table was only $19.99? I couldn't believe my eyes. I had been looking for a similar table to use for my laptop when I sat in my recliner in the living room, but the ones I had found were in the $150 price bracket, or didn't swivel. I did want a little more than 22 inches in width at the top, but my husband assured me that he could laminate a sheet of rigid countertop plastic to the top and it would be perfect.

Well, it was. Even though I expected that my $20 would disappear into the black hole along with all my other mail-order boondoggles, I just had to have that tilt-top table.
(Did I mention that they were having a "free shipping" week?) That was the cincher.

My table took about two weeks to arrive, and my husband took about two days to attach the extension he had promised me. I love that little table.

After stretching out in my recliner, I pull lightly on my tilt-top table and it swings across the arms of my chair like a restraining bar on a carnival ride. No laptop pressure on my legs at all, and if I need to head to the kitchen for a snack, I just swing the table back against the wall.

So far, we are not set up for wireless service so my husband mounted a switch on the end of the table so that I can turn the power to the computer on and off without stretching to reach down to the wall switch beside my chair. With the extension, the table has plenty of room for the computer and any material I may be working with to lie beside it.

This little table is something I wish I had had years ago, and now that I do, I wonder how I ever got along without it.