Let’s Bounce: Wood Ping Pong Table by Etel

Snapshot: Designed by Etel, this wooden ping pong table is made from walnut, brass, and leather, and is an impressive piece of furniture that brings the ping pong game out of the basement and into the living room.

The common image of a ping pong table is associated with a blandly painted blue plywood flip-top, and given that its unsturdy exterior shakes atop its roller wheels, going for the ball becomes as dangerous as an actual tennis match.  For over 20 years, designer Dado Castello Branco and architect Etel Carmona have maintained a friendship and partnership in impressive furniture design, the newest fruit of which is a new, sturdier, wooden ping pong table.  It’s designed with a suave originality and an aristocratic appreciation of the decorative potential that a gaming device such as this may hold for any room, a piece to play on and show off at the same time.

This is definitely a ping pong table to put on display, not hide away in a basement or a den.  The finished product is formed from the shades of golden bronze that are offered by wood, brass, and leather. The American walnut and jequitiba from which the structure is crafted is finished perfectly, while the brass shows up as the material for the drawers and the legs of the base, as well as affixing the permeated leather net to the table top.  From one of those brass affixations hangs a leather bucket, a curious shape that invites a more tangible exploration.  The paddles are polished from walnut as well, and lie on carefully symmetrical outlines of leather.

Simplistic in its use of materials and harmonious in its color scheme, Etel’s wooden ping pong table is a versatile addition to any home, office, or club, able to meld in nicely to most contexts while augmenting the surroundings with class and aplomb.

Photography courtesy of Etel