One of the first things I bought for my flat in Dortmund was a large table to assemble puzzles on, 180 x 100 cm.  You’ll be seeing a lot of this table on the blog 🙂 Any pieces that won’t fit on the table I spread out on sheets of cardboard, and while puzzling I keep them on a drying rack, seen here to the right. I have since acquired a second drying rack so that I don’t have to use it for laundry and puzzle pieces at the same time (the laundry was almost dry and the cardboard is very thick).

Here’s a better picture of  the drying rack:

So, what if you want to actually use the table for, say, dining? Originally I thought about having glass panels cut, but a friend suggested an alternative, acrylic glass, which is cheaper, lighter, doesn’t break as easily, and you can get these straight off the shelves in a hardware store – no need to have anything cut. Glass would, of course, look better, but you can’t have everything.

You just put as many panels as you need to cover the puzzle on the table, and after you’re done, you just lift them off again, and every piece is exactly where you left it.

Looks a bit hair-raising, but perfectly safe. Only the pancakes didn’t survive, the puzzle was fine.