A tale of 2 tables

A few months ago, I started looking at our kitchen table and pondering some things. We don't have a dining room, so the table has to fit within our small kitchen. The one we have had since we got married in 1994 is a perfectly lovely table, but since moving into this house in 2005, it has been pretty useless as a dining table. It has mostly been used as a place to pile clutter. It's too big for the kitchen, so it is just shoved up against the wall. That only leaves space for 4 chairs, and there are 5 of us, so right off the bat, it doesn't work for us. In the space allowed for the 4 chairs, 1 was so smashed up against the baker's rack that it did not leave enough room for someone to sit in it (you couldn't pull it out far enough for anyone to sit there). I ended up sticking our recycling box in that chair and everyone put things there until we could move them outside into our big recycling containers (a daily chore for one of the kids). It ended up that 99% of the time, the kids sat at the bar, I sat in 1 of the chairs at the table and Larry almost always ended up in the living room in his recliner. And 100% of the time I was frustrated with how messy the table looked. It was just another flat surface to collect piles of 'stuff'.

While ideally, I'd MUCH prefer that we have a dining room and a table that would be suitable for ALL of us to sit at TOGETHER for each meal, the reality is that in this house, that's not ever going to happen. It just doesn't work given the space & the furniture we have. So I decided to do something about what space and furniture we have!

Last month I put our table on Craigslist and advertised it on Facebook in a local swap shop group. I had several people come look, but no one immediately jumped to buy it. I knew the right buyer was out there, and eventually I found her last week!

After selling the too-big-for-our-kitchen table, I was on the hunt for a small 2-person space-saving table. If I could find something like that for the same amount of money I'd made off selling the other table, we'd be set. That way, at least 2 of us could use the table at each meal time plus it would FORCE me to put up all the clutter and not pile stuff on it. I'd much rather have a useful piece of furniture!!

I have been looking on Craigslist and searching some local consignment shops this week and did not find THE ONE. I felt like once I saw it I would know "that's it!", but just couldn't find anything that suited me. Someone mentioned that Target & Walmart have some furniture now, so I went hunting on their websites and was pleasantly surprised to find the perfect little table on the Walmart site!

It arrived today in a big ol' box from Fed Ex. It took us about 2 hours to put together, but it only took that long because one of the drawers was a little wonky & needed some special attention to make it work. (i.e. sandpaper, chisel, bar of soap to lubricate the drawer guide) Once we got it in, it works perfectly!

Take a look!

This is mid-way through the assembly process. Sarah is modeling the size of the table. (plus she likes to be in pictures!)

When the table is 'closed', it looks like this.

And then you can extend the swing-out leg & open the table top surface up and you have a great table for 2 people. (My mom loaned us the card table in the background until we could replace the table!)

This is the view from the other side, where I have 2 drawers (hooray! I only have 2 in my whole kitchen, so gaining 2 more is awesome!!) and you can see where the stools hang for storage when not in use. There is also a towel bar at the end.

The whole thing is on caster so I can move it around when needed. You can lock the casters if needed, too.

I love it!