In graduate school, I spent time procrastinating by solving a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. The pieces lived on my dining room table for about a year, taking up almost the entire surface area. Whenever people came by, they insisted on trying to fit in pieces, choosing heaven or hell according to their desires (someone wanted desperately to complete the pig nun).

The Puzzle Collection. By Patou Design.

Of course, the German puzzle company made every piece incredibly nuanced, so that anyone who had completed a regular jigsaw puzzle was not actually classified to fit two pieces together.
Eventually, I outsmarted the manufacturer and finished the damn thing-and ever since I've been waiting for that infernal puzzle maker to offer another 10,000-piece jigsaw. So it should come as no surprise that I immediately liked the Puzzle Collection of art furniture produced by Patou Design. Shaped like jigsaw puzzle pieces, these cocktail and console tables are each individually numbered. Available in coffee and console varieties, Puzzle can be fit together piece by piece or joined with one or two pieces of glass. In wenge or zebra wood finish, the Puzzle pieces enrich anyone's style and space.

My ultimate wish is for the German puzzle manufacturer to fill their headquarters with these Puzzle tables. I'd also like the Puzzle people to design a Puzzle desk-shaped like puzzle pieces. Think of the possibility for modular office furniture! I'd like any of the Puzzle tables for my own living room, which I would use to lay out my jigsaw puzzles in progress-it would be a puzzling mise-en-abyme. Patou Design offers the Puzzle Collection through their South Florida gallery-a fact that seems particularly fitting given that Florida looks like an errant puzzle piece.