My new project

The last two weeks have been busy ones at work, and I haven't managed to accomplish much around the house. Alan and I both had major grant proposals due on March 1, and were working 16-18 hour days. As a result, this weekend we're dealing with big piles of laundry, an empty fridge, an under-exercised dog and two very cranky, neglected children. We're both rather cranky too. Add to it how tired I am of writing and revising (and revising and revising) and you can understand why my blog has been largely ignored for the past couple of weeks.

Anyway, about three weeks ago I bought a new table for our kitchen. Right now we have a round table against the wall with two chairs flanking it. Unfortunately, only one of the chairs faces the television - the unlucky kid who sits down last has to swivel back and forth between his cereal bowl and the TV. This leads to fights most mornings when the boys are eating breakfast and want to be the one with the clear front view of cartoons.

I was thinking that I could prevent these arguments if they were sitting side-by-side against the wall, with both of them facing the television. The only problem is that the round table we have in there now is 42" wide and will block the pathway through the kitchen if we move it far enough out from the wall to sit behind.

So I was keeping my eyes open for a narrower table. It didn't need to be large because we always eat dinner in the dining room. We really only eat breakfast in the kitchen, and our timing in the morning always has only two people at the table at any time. We have seating for two at the island if we do happen to overlap.

I found a table that has the perfect proportions. It's 42" wide, which turns out to be precisely the width of the seat that I was planning to use in the dining room. Now I think I'll move it to the kitchen to use there. The table is only 28" deep, so there will be room to have seating against the wall and the table in front of it.

The table is an antique Empire style library table. As you can see, the it's very dark and heavy looking right now. In places where the old finish has chipped off, the wood is much lighter underneath. I plan to refinish it in a medium stain.

I've been itching to get started on it. It's in pretty rough shape, but thankfully it's all surface damage.

It's going to be a lot of work, especially those curly legs. I toyed with the idea of painting it, but I think it will look beautiful refinished. And I'll stain the bench and the island stools the same colour so they coordinate.

As for the bench, I think that I'll have it covered in vinyl to that it's easy to clean up spills. I certainly don't want to set myself up to have to be nagging the kids about sticky fingers on fabric all the time!