Hello friends!
We've been doing some spring cleaning around our yard while we're on hold waiting for the family room floors to be installed. I know it must seem to you like this has gone on forever! It's a fact of life that contractor schedules are a delicate and mysterious thing, and we've learned to happily go with the flow. We actually took advantage of having extra time while the family room sits demolished for a week to repaint all the trim back there.
I do have a bit of exciting indoor news to share today, though!
As you probably know if you're a follower of my blog, I inherited this 75 year-old maple drop leaf table about thirty years ago. I painted and refinished it, and it's been well loved and used for many family meals at our house over the years. However, as you can see in this photo, at 54" round it's always been a bit of a tight squeeze to walk around the table from the living room to the back rooms of our house, a regular necessity due to our shotgun floor plan.
Back in January of last year, I asked your opinions about table shapes in this post. I cut a large rectangle of cardboard and put it on top of our table to see how we liked it. We loved that we could fit more chairs around this shape without having to add extra leaves and how we had more room on the sides to walk. So it was decided we'd get a new rectangular farmhouse style table.
Whoa, not so fast there, Nellie.
It turns out that almost all tables have aprons around them that would keep the 27"- high arms of our Windsor chairs from fitting beneath the table top, and we really wanted to keep our six comfy very sturdy maple chairs. We thought about building our own farmhouse style table to fit, but those big solid wood tables are so darn heavy! So, we've been shopping for the just-right table for over a year. If we found one without an apron, it wasn't wide enough between the legs to fit two chairs side by side or maybe the table was too short or maybe it was too long or too narrow or too something.
You get the picture. Gosh, we're picky!
We were becoming pretty much resigned to keeping our old table, when yesterday we finally found one, and here's a sneak peek!
This is all I can show you today because just out of camera range our house is still piled high with all the stuff from getting our floors redone. A mess, in other words.
See how two of our black arm chairs fit under the table top side by side between the legs with room to spare? We can now fit six chairs here, and even eight in a pinch. No more lugging heavy leaves and extra chairs to the table when all the kids are here for Sunday dinner. And the ends of the table are just right for our big wicker mom and dad chairs. This table is 72" long and 39" wide, which is just right for six uncrowded place mats and platters of food down the middle, but still narrow enough to walk around. And unlike our unusually sized round table, I can now purchase standard size table cloths and runners. And (maybe best of all) you wouldn't even believe the great price we got on the table on sale and with a coupon.
Can you tell we LOVE our new rustic industrial farmhouse dining room table!?!
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This table isn't heirloom quality furniture like my antique maple table, but it's sturdy, heavy, well made, and the exact size, shape, and eclectic farmhouse look and feel we've been wanting. The finish on the metal legs even matches our new pewter chandelier. We're doing a big ol' happy dance in our dining room today because the long search for a table is over!
For now, our round family heirloom table is pushed into the corner awaiting its fate. It will be either going to my daughter's new house in her own dining room or upstairs in our loft as a game table. Wherever it ends up, it will always be cherished.
Please keep your fingers crossed for us that our floors will finally be finished this week. I'm getting excited to unpack our boxes of stuff and do some spring decorating!
Meanwhile, have a great week!
