Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Out with the new, in with the old

When the sellers moved out of this home, they left behind some furniture (notably a huge dining table with chairs, and a kitchen island) as well as a lot of useful building materials in the barn. We made good use of the building materials in creating the pantry. At first we thought we'd keep the dining table and kitchen island they left behind; but now that we have some of the household items that was previously stored in the barn at our old place, we decided we'd rather have our own furniture instead.

The dining table is handmade and massive. It weighs -- no exaggeration -- on the order of 250 lbs. and is constructed of solid 2x6s.

This table is well suited to large families or medieval banquet halls. It's nearly four feet wide and almost eight feet long.

 
 
What it isn't suited for is two empty nesters in a modest manufactured home. Let's face it, it simply dominates the center of the house.
 
The kitchen island was similarly solid.
 
 
We decided to give both pieces of furniture the heave-ho. (We'll offer them for sale some time during the spring.) Don disassembled the dining table top from the legs so we could get it out the door.


Here's the base with the top off.

Look how much room we now have, without that massive table and kitchen island!

This room in the foreground will become our library. The wall on the right is the pantry wall, and soon it will be covered wall-to-wall with bookshelves. The wall on the left, with the current bookshelves and birdcage, will be cleared to make room for the wood cookstove (when we get it installed). At that point, we will disassemble the current pellet stove (which we'll also put up for sale) and put those two bookshelves where the pellet stove current is, and ... and ... and ... well, as you may gather, we'll be doing lots of rearranging in the next few months.

Meanwhile it was nice to see our old battered farmhouse table and chairs again. We pulled them onto the porch while we moved the other furniture out...

...and then put the table and chairs into the kitchen. Out with the new, in with the old.

And Mr. Darcy seems to like having that medieval banquet table out of the middle of the room as well.

8 comments:

  1. It's good to be open-minded, but we often find that we made old choices for a good reason. If you can't sell them, you can always give them to some young couple just starting out.

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  2. I can understand why that table might not suit your needs but it sure will be lovely for the right family. It looks beautifully built. I'm sure having your own table there makes it feel much more like home.

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  3. That table would make a heck of a work bench.

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  4. That is a monstrous table and beautiful.

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  5. Simply exquisite table and island-in the wrong house. They need to be in a 3600 sf home that has a lot of family members, and does old fashioned meals. Large furniture requires a large house. I like your old table better too.

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  6. You seem to be describing a garden-variety conservative asshole.

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    Replies
    1. Gotta love the tolerance the left keeps preaching about.

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