We had a wood coffee table and used the glass coasters with the photo inside until one day the glass coaster stuck to the glass then slipped off and the corner fell and left a nick in the table. I found some cheap rubber ones at Target, but would like to find some more attractive looking coasters.

I’ve always been coaster free, but more b/c I could never find a set I liked for a price I could afford (can we say scrappy college grad?)

I was recently at a trash dump in Maine checking out a freebie second hand trailer they have. Didn’t find anything in there, but when I was passing the glass recycling container I spotted these awesome tiles- a light tanish color w/large earthy brown & yellow flowers on them. Looked like someone had removed a very outdated kitchen wall tile. I snagged few, cleaned off the backs and added little round felt feet! They look great and the coffee table stays dry :-)

I live in Texas and it’s very hot and humid down here so the glasses really sweat. As far as coaster are concerned, we used to have them but my kiddos were always playing with them so they don’t stay on the tables like they should so I got rid of them. Our coffee table is very old and was refinished by my husband’s grandmother and she put about 10 coats of poly on it so it’s indistructible. I did get a new side table next to the couch so on Thanksgiving I put some old books on it that I didn’t care about getting wet so the drinks went on those.

We have a nice set of coasters that I couldn’t pass up at Goodwill. I don’t have a coaster rule per se but I do have a rule in my house that no beverages past the kitchen area. Maybe that’s worse than forcing guests to use coasters but it works for us and guests happily oblige. ;o)

I’m all about some coasters…not on the dining table obviously, but definitely on our nice oak coffee table. We have some glass mosaic square ones, and the Thirstystone ones with felt bottoms. If I see a glass without a coaster on the coffee table, I promptly slip one under. Mainly because we saved our hard-earned $ to have nice furniture and I want it to last a long time! Is that so bad? haha

I save cool coasters whenever I am at a bar. The last trip we went on to see family in the UK, I collected a good stack of quirky Irish, Welsh and English coasters (for things like Green Goblin Cider and Black Sheep Ale). So I just spread out the wacky coaster collection whenever we have a party. They catch the eye so they get used reasonably regularly. And I love ‘em.

I have a set of glass coasters that I received as a gift. They are ones you can insert pictures in. Currently they host pics of cool worldy sites. Like the ruined Athens collosium , etc.. But I just realized that also makes it handy to switch out and update. Monograms, plain colors. etc.

we’re currently coaster-less, though i dream of one day having furniture nice enough that it could be ruined. :) so, one day we’ll be monogrammed coaster people.

I bought some raw marble tiles at Lowes, and added little felt feet to the bottom. Since they are unsealed, they are actually pretty good at holding the water to their surface, and it doesn’t drip over the edge like it would on glass. They are pretty awesome, and look great on my dark coffee/end tables.

DH and I use cardboard coasters from a bar in Ireland. They actually have a hand painted image of a tradtional Irish bar called Peadar O’Donnell’s. Someone gave use a few unused packets and they’re a nice touch. We get many compliments!

My mom owns an antique mall, so we’ve had great antiques my whole life. The one house rule we grew up with was always use a coaster! She knew how quickly a “naked” glass could ruin a marble or wood top and then the value was significantly reduced (and thus her profits). Also, sometimes my mom would change out a few pieces of furniture from our house and sell them at the store, or put items that hadn’t sold into our home for a little while, so our house was always changing a little bit, but it was important that the furniture stay in mint condition. She is always the merchant, but we’ve been lucky enough to inherit some of these beautiful pieces of furniture, and they are all water stain-free!

We’re a no coaster family – but there are always plenty of books and magazines to put drinks on! ;-)

I’d say you guys were coaster folk – except for the little hint at the end about the answer surprising us…so I’m going with you are NO COASTER folk! ;-)

The key with coasters is they HAVE to be absorbent, so the glass and metal ones (even though they look nice) don’t work — drinks always end up sliding off. I think I’ve tried just about every coaster out there, and the best ones — by far — and also the cheapest, are the cork coasters from IKEA. They come in round and square, and at six for $1, can’t beat the price. The spongy plastic ones work well, too.

We need coasters, but I am still looking for the right ones.
How much snow did you end up with up there? Here in Portsmouth, VA we only got a dusting. Hope all 3.5 of you are well and staying warm and dry!

For Christmas, I just bought my boyfriend glass photo coasters to go in his new house (he has been using old cardboard ones he got in Europe…they may be better suited for his future “man cave”!). Instead of using pictures of us or people we know, I went to our college’s online archives and printed out old black and white pictures of our school’s football team in action! They turned out really well – especially for his bachelor pad – and it’s something original that you couldn’t find in a store.

We have some hand carved wood coasters from East Africa. They have animals carved into each piece and come with a wood storage device for when they are not in use. However, since we had our son they have become more like fun toys to him. When we have guests I do put the coasters out and hope people see them but if someone does not use one I usually will not say anything because I don’t want to embarrass them. However, I do try and set the example :-)

P.S. we’re snowed in too!

We use coasters so we don’t get rings on our wood coffee table and piano. We have glass coasters that you can put photos in. Most of them were given to us as gifts – 2 from a wedding and 4 given as a gift for our wedding. We also have 4 straw ones that are really cool. =)

I would guess that you are the coaster using type? Yeah?
We had a snow blizzard here a couple of weeks ago. We got 2 feet of snow!

Do you get tired of saying, head back to find out if we are pro or anti coaster? hehehe

We are an anti coaster house. We used to be anal about coasters. Our tables are polyed but I was still afraid of rings. We had beautiful coasters that were stainless with a leather insert. We ditched them the day our toddler used one to give our tables a distressed look. When you have a toddler in the house, it is probably best that you don’t leave open cups on coffee/end tables so we just stopped drinking in the living room.

Definitely COASTER kind-of-people! And, this is too funny that this is the burning question b/c just this past weekend I switched out our old icky looking store-bought coasters with DIY ones! I’m in LOVE with them! I’m sure you’ve all heard/seen about the tile DIY coasters… but if you haven’t – I purchased 6 4×4 tiles at Lowes, a package of ‘rub-on’ design decals at Wal-Mart, and a sheet of felt with sticky on one side from Wal-Mart as well… put the felt on the bottom sides of the tiles… put the rub-on designs on the tops of the tiles, sprayed the tops of the tiles with glaze-shine spray, let dry, and Vavoom! Beautiful! I LOVE them!

You guys got me thinking on Friday whether or not we were “coaster people”… we have coasters around, but I never really thought of it… until Sunday, when my evil stepmother-in-law put her sweaty cup of tea on my hand painted coffee table [link in url field]… RIGHT NEXT to the coaster… maybe I shouldn’t be so anal since it is painted and poly’d… but I mean… RIGHT NEXT TO IT?? Maybe I SHOULD opt for the glass coffee table like you guys… haha

Coasters all the way at our house! Instead of the photos inside the glass coasters, we swapped ours out for monograms instead. We have a set of four in the living room and we have two K’s and two P’s instead of using just our last name, we used our first. :)

I love Sarah’s idea above. I’ll have to try that next!

we DON’T use coasters because a) we no longer use the red glass ones that matched our red wall, since we painted it aqua b) the replacement woven baskety ones from ikea make excellent doggie chew toys, according to our boston terrier c) our coffee table is really a child’s table from ikea (only one we could find that fit into our custom u-shaped couch–it cost $40, so stains don’t bother us) and d) thanks to aforementioned boston terrier, who loves to taste whatever we’re drinking, we no longer leave glasses or bottles on the coffee table!

I had the glass ones with photos inside but then all the photos ended up getting wet and gross so now I have glass coasters with nothing inside… I need to find something new. I was considering making little mini paintings on the back part of the glass window but have not tried it yet.

I have coasters in case a guest wants to use them, though that certainly isn’t necessary. And though I think coasters are pretty, my 2 little boys seem to enjoy flinging them around the room, so SOFT coasters are all I dare set out.

We’re not coaster people-mainly because we don’t have any! I would guess that you two are non-coasters as well.

I’m digging the photo of the coasters, that would be a neat DIY project to tackle.

I am a stamper, so I got some tumbled tiles from HL and stamped our monogram and simple deigns on them. Then I sealed them and added cork to the back. They are super cute, functional, and I can make them for the different seasons!

Great question. We do own coasters. They’re round, stainless steel. The thing is, we hardly ever use them!