Indonesian Wood Side Table

A sliced log that stopped being a log a long, long time ago.

This side table comes from Java, Indonesia, in petrified wood with a stainless steel base. Petrified wood forms when minerals seep into buried timber and slowly replace it, and a polished cross section shows the tree's growth rings in stone. This thick slab is pale cream and gray on top with broad ring patterns, while its edge stays rough, tan and streaked. A notch breaks the outline on one side. Bright steel bars rise from a crossed base. Twenty-one and a half inches high and twenty-five and a half long.

Set a coffee cup on it. The table has endured worse.