Testimony: “It is a gift from my father”

A bedside table can be very precious. Christel, 40, divorced, lives in a stepfamily model with her two sons and her stepdaughter.

“This mahogany table hides a chamber pot! It was given to me by my auctioneer father during my difficult divorce. I hide an old pullover in it and some gilded paper; a vestige of the period when, without children, I had more time to restore frames. I like objects that tell a story.

As a child, my father’s auction room was my favourite playground. As a designer of mobile sculptures, I prefer to create or exchange objects; such as my Miss Love bedside lamp, designed by Coralie Beauchamps. Or the Mikado shelf by the architect Jean-François Bellemère, which is located near my bed. My exhibition catalogues and art magazines are a source of inspiration which easily land on my bedside table.

As I have been living in a stepfamily for a year, I have not updated our photo frames. On the bedside table, my partner has only a small lamp customised by my sons and my stepdaughter; our most precious ‘museum’ features their drawings, over our bed!”

Psychotherapist’s opinion:

This table has the status of the ‘phobia repeller’, like a child’s security blanket. It broadcasts a reassuring image that we revisit in our dreams. The link to childhood is essential in her universe: from the bed, she faces photos of herself as a child. Over the bed, we find the drawings made by her children. For Christel, who lives in a stepfamily, the exchanged objects and their closeness on her bedside table reveals something deeper than professional connivance: these designers embody her ‘other’ reconstructed family.

Isabelle Soing

Read more in our Bedside table series:

Testimony: “I have two bedside tables; they express my two facets.”
Testimony: “It is one of the rare places that is personal to me.”
Testimony: “It is invaded by novels that make me laugh.”
Is the bedside table a reflection of your lives?