Finding a Kitchen Table

The day we moved into our house, I knew right away that I wanted to get a table for the kitchen. This little set up with the window and the tiniest of built-ins was just BEGGING to be turned into a cozy eating/reading/coffee drinking nook.

Step one to creating this type of nook is, of course, getting a table.

Fortunately, we already had a table. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for the space at all.

A couple of things about our current table: We really like it. It was one of the first pieces of furniture we purchased together. We got it and the chairs for really cheap at my favorite second hand store. The white parts used to be green and we spray painted them. Taping around all of the spindles before painting was probably the first really tough thing we had to tackle as a married couple (no joke, a true test of patience and fine motor skills). We sprayed them in my dad’s garage and negligently turned much of his floor white. He was less than thrilled. What I’m trying to say is, we’ve made lots of memories with this table and it has sentimental value. However, we feel really ridiculous sitting, just the two of us, at a table for 6. We always joke that we should sit at the head and the foot and pretend to be real formal and whatnot (for the record, we have never done this..). Also, it’s down the hall from the kitchen (ya know, where all of the food and dishes are), so logistically it just doesn’t make much sense for us to eat there regularly. Oh, and it’s way too big for the space in the kitchen, so we can’t move it in there. I guess that’s important too.

So for the first five months we lived here, I scoured thrift stores, consignment shops, Craigslist, and garage sales looking for the perfect kitchen table at the perfect price, to no avail. To be fair though, I did have a lot of requirements.

These were my table demands:

1. I wanted to spend as little money as possible. Preferably under $100 when all was said and done (this included chairs).
2. I love pedestal tables and love round tables. I wanted the new table to be both of these things.
3. Since our big table is visible from the spot in the kitchen where the new table would be going, I wanted them to look fairly different (you know, so it wasn’t like a poorly done matchy-matchy kinda thing). This meant I wanted to steer clear of the paint/stain combo as much as possible, and no rounded backs with spindles.
4. The new table would be going in a little nook that you walk through to get to the living room from the front of the house, so it couldn’t stick out too far. Some people who live here are prone to running into things that stick out.
5. It had to be small enough to not feel ridiculous for just two people (like our big table does), but big enough that it could comfortably fit four people.
6. I wanted to have a little bit of a project to do. Updating old(er) furniture is one of my favorite things, so I wanted a piece that I could update or refinish in some way.

Just a couple requirements. No big deal.

Anddd five months later, I had found nothing to fit the bill. And I was jonesing for a kitchen table. Husband would sit on the stairs to talk to me while I destroyed his freshly cleaned kitchen made dinner and I would think “Gee, it would be so nice to have chairs in here to sit on”. I would stare at the little nook longingly in the mornings while I drank my coffee, standing up.

Then one day around Christmas we were at my brother and sister-in-law’s house talking to them about their upcoming home renovations. They were planning on changing just about everything in their house and were having to get rid of a lot of their current furniture because it wouldn’t fit the future layout. Then, they started offering us furniture and (can you guess where I’m going with this?!) told us we could have their kitchen table and four chairs for FREE.

Man. Family, amirite?

As a sidenote, we got a lot of great stuff from them, including the paint I used in our bathroom and some wall decor. My advice to you is, if you know someone who is planning a major home overhaul, visit them and compliment everything you like. It could result in free (or very heavily discounted!) stuff for you.

But GUYS. The table gets even better. On top of that whole ‘free’ part. Here are the things I love about it:

1. FREE! (Really, I can’t get over it. After close to 6 months of searching, I was starting to question my $100 budget).
2. Pedestal base. Round top.
3. Different enough from our current table to not look oddly matching, but similar enough in style and color to not clash.
4. Won’t stick out too far into the walkway.
5. Small enough for just the two of us, but could reasonably fit four.
6. In need of a little TLC. Because I love fixing up furniture. PLUS, this project involves things that I’ve never gotten to do before, including refinishing wood and reupholstering seats. Fun!

We are so excited to have this table and I’ll be updating about the progress of fixing it up. I’m planning to reupholster the seats and refinish the tabletop, which hopefully won’t take too long because I can’t wait to move this into our kitchen!