An Update for Practicality
Before my youngest was born, we transformed our dining room into a library. During that process, I had dreamed of being able to fit in a table and chairs for people to sit at to play board games and put together puzzles. But we could just never make that configuration work.
My oldest is a pretty avid board game player. And my youngest never met a puzzle that didn’t need tackling or a coloring book that didn’t need each page filled.
And so it became that every single day, our kitchen table would be covered with art supplies, random puzzle pieces, and other board game remnants that would then have to be cleaned up before a meal.
Not only that, but playing a board game or putting together a puzzle as a family around a long farm table just isn’t practical.
Rob and I got serious about trying to figure out where we could carve out a space somewhere in the cottage that we could fit a little round table that would meet these very specific needs.
The conversation about this topic would come and go, and we always landed on the green sofa in our formal living room. It was comfy, and I loved the color. But it absolutely never got used.
A few weeks ago while wandering a thrift store on 50% off day, I stumbled on a turn-of-the-century oak table with some damage to the top. But what really caught my eye were the gorgeous legs on the table and the gorgeous set of chairs. Each chair had a beautiful cane seat with absolutely no damage. And the entire set was $50 that day.
I ran to find Rob, who was keeping our kids occupied in the book section. It didn’t occur to me right away that this was our game table, but I knew that it was a super deal. Rob took like a 30-second look and decided the same. He flopped down the money for it and told them we would be back in a few days.
We got home and got to work thinking about finding storage space for it until we knew if this set was meant for our house or for Fallen Oak Cottage. Somehow over the weekend, we started to wonder if this was meant to be our game table.
We talked about the practicality of changing out the green couch for the table, but the trouble was that we only wanted to move the green couch once because it was so heavy. So before we were even sure if the table would look ok in here, we were hauling out the green couch on a whim.
Rob oiled down the top to address some of the staining, and it made the area a bit less noticeable. But things like that don’t bother me with old furniture. I always expect it to be sort of beat up. I decided a strategically placed lamp would work perfectly to hide it.
In the process of moving in the table, we realized our rug was too small based on how we wanted the table to sit in the room. I ordered a new one during Wayfair’s Labor Day sale, and we put it down just this morning. What do you think of how it looks?
Overall, we’re really pleased with the table. In the little more than a week since it’s been here, it’s already seen so much activity. And we’re having to clean off our kitchen table way less. In the winter, I can’t wait to sit here with a cup of coffee playing Scrabble with Rob (one of our favorite pre-kid board games).
Practicality for another win at the cottage.
