>>Can you give an example why you need a "variant" field?
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>Example 1 - to store application settings like window sizes and user preferences. I use a table with only two fields Name and Value. Each setting has unique name and their values are of different types.
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>Example 2 - to store custom object properties. The list of properties is not predefined and also objects with different sets of properties may be "stored" in the same table.

Add a third field for data type, and store all data as text. I have used that solution for many years.