We have a dilemma. We, too, have known the horror living in bedrooms like this, where the mattress extends nearly wall to wall. Even now that we've upgraded, we still have a mere seven inches of bedside space to work with. We have a similar problem in the living room, where our rascally 71-inch futon constantly edges its way into the hallway. Even if we broke down and bought an extremely guest-unfriendly 65-inch loveseat, we've found that end tables rarely come fewer than 14 inches across. We know you feel our pain. So what do you do if you can't afford to go built-in?

Enter the platable. (Yes, we made up the word.) We normally leave DIY prescriptions like this to outlets like ReadyMade, but this weekend we saw such an elegantly simple (and cheap!) solution to the problem of space-saving side tables that we had to share. A friend of ours combined a four-legged metal table base like this one (scavenged for on the curbsides of the Upper West Side, but we're sure one could be found for cheap with some basic Googling) with the colorful square plates you can find at Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, and elsewhere, to make a totally customizable end table for cheap, cheap, cheap. We were fooled; it really looked professional. And did we mention it was cheap? (That CB plate is only $6.50!) Go forth and craft!