Since we moved five years ago into our 1920s Dutch-colonial house, we’d been dining on the same small cherry-wood pedestal table from our Brooklyn brownstone. It enabled great meals and remains an awesome table (and it’s for sale if you’d like to buy it).
But it was time to upgrade to a new dining room table to anchor our larger home and growing family. So we purchased a four-legged pine table, which matches our kitchen cabinetry and seats up to 12. In just three weeks, it’s hosted a few dinner parties and dozens of family meals. We’re happy with it.
Satisfaction aside, I thought the consumer ironies of our new table are interesting, if not downright American…
It is new, but accessorized with “authentic saw marks and natural gouges”.
It had never been used, but it was a floor model the store couldn’t sell. Nobody wanted it, so we paid half price.
This “farm table” was designed, built and marketed not for country bumpkins, but for thirty-something-year-old suburbanites, like us.
“It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t let us to sit close to one another, like our old table,” my five-year-old son proclaims. I can’t argue that, but we’re a little less cramped and can more easily accomodate guests. It’s also made our dining room more of a hangout.
Finally, our kids, birthday parties and occasional adult dinner parties will abuse the table surface, but nobody will notice or care. In fact, the abuse will only accentuate the stylized saw marks and gouges, which we would’ve paid premium for, if it weren’t for the half-price sale.
Our new dining room table has earned a place in our home.
If you guys end up with 10 kids you’ll have to upgrade again huh? 😉 We have a big “authentic”, had it for 12 years now, it does get natural dings and bruises over time don’t worry! But in about 2 months it gets replaced – with the kitchen renos we decided to merge kitchen and dining room and to let go of the dining room table in favor of a 4 X 12 island that crosses from kitchen area to dining room area, one end if functional, the other end is seating on 3 sides for 9 people.
Wow….that’s hardcore. Send pics of the island. Our kitchen and dining room is semi-merged with a small island/countertop, but we still need the table.
We had a 10 seater table custom made for us last year, and we maxed out this holiday season when we had both my and my wife’s side of the family over. We *did* manage to squeeze 12 people on there though, but I was caught wishing we had ordered a 12 seater.
So definitely worth getting a huge table for those times when you need it!
Ours is actually a six or eight seater, but has two leafs that extend it to a strong 12 or 14. The table and leafs are so durable, they seem like one. There will be great satisfaction when do ultimately seat 14.