a fun fridge

I love the tumblr Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table and I agree with it so much.

Crooked song lyrics in a non-working fireplace? Hate.

Overuse of antlers? Spare me. (click here for full pictures - I'll spare you)

What kills me is that most of these pictures seem like they're done by people who are trying too hard. Their antlers are ironic, not that they actually like antlers. The art often seems like stuff to fill up space (or to look cute for your Apartment Therapy house tour like the fireplace above) rather than because they actually like it.

I'm not a big fan of blank walls that stay blank forever. But I'm also not a fan of stuff for stuff's sake. I get itchy when I see a bookcase that has more tchotchkes than books (why not a curio cabinet instead?).

Some stuff is cool. A coworker once did a painting to fill up his blank wall by copying his striped area rug. Something you didn't even notice at first, but when you did, it was fresh and fun, not twee. And this was years before blogs so definitely his own idea.

And some stuff that FYNCT hates I love. Like this "fun fridge."

I mean, are you kidding me? My favorite David Hicks pattern on a fridge? And all the honeycomb lines line up? I want this. Bad.

My fridge works just fine. But it's white and I have it covered in magnets, which I kind of hate. But I have white walls in there and no real desire to paint them (I actually like white walls in a kitchen) so I think a white fridge would just be too boring.

Hmmm - removable wallpaper stuff is supposedly like contact paper. And Spoonflower lets you create your own design. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

If I...were coming up with yet another idea for my kitchen

I haven't really done anything with my kitchen.  Except for my new stove, it's basically exactly the same as the day I moved in.  I haven't even bothered taking a real set of pictures since it looks just like these from the MLS listing.  Except a heck of a lot more cluttered because, well, I have a lot of stuff.

Of course it's easy to dream about what I'd do if I were to gut the place, but what if I were just giving it a facelift?  Something I could do by myself (or with Shelly's help and/or with minimal help from a handyman/contractor type)?

Now, what I'd REALLY like to do is swap the long cabinet and the dishwasher so the latter will be by the window and out of the way when open.  Right now it blocks movement between the sink and the doorway and is super annoying.  Plus with this switch, then I'd have an even long expanse of counter right where I like to work.  But that's a bigger project, what with taking the cabinets all down and moving them around, moving the plumbing, blah blah blah. 

But I can live with the current layout if I could get rid of the orange cabinets and the depressing floor and the so-not-me counters.  And add a little more storage space.  Here's my latest design plan:

Centsational Girl recently redid her guest studio's cabinets with Rust-Oleum's Cabinet Transformations and they came out great.  She didn't even take the doors down!  Love that.  I decided to go with a more gray-based scheme because it just felt more me (even though I've been all about the brown in my living room).  So I picked Winter Fog and then I'll use their Counter Transfomations kit in Onyx to switch up my counters just as quickly.  I'll add this sideboard piece from Ikea (think I may buy it IRL!) and paint in the same Winter Fog.

I might be most excited about the floors.  My house was built in 1942 and linoleum was all the rage.  It went out of favor, but is coming back with Marmoleum!  I picked out a warm gray and then will add a black Greek key rectangle in the middle as a sort of rug.  Fun, right?  And linoleum is a green product and a lot softer on your feet than tile.  I also like the lack of grout lines (and thus cleaning grout lines).  'Course, I don't know how much it would cost, but let's worry about that later.

Currently, the space above my cabinets is chock full of stuff.  Platters, bowls, cupcake carrier.  I did reorganize my kitchen that one weekend, but it's still full of stuff.  All those bulky kitchen items that don't fit anywhere else.  In an ideal world, I'd put in new cabinets that go all the way up to the ceiling.  In this world, I'll get some nice baskets in different sizes to hide everything.  I also like the way the natural color and texture downplays the could-be-too-stark pink/black/gray color scheme.

I debated the color of the walls.  It'd be safer to go with another shade of blue or maybe yellow or maybe the same grass green as the powder room.  But in my heart, I want pink.  When I first moved in, I thought I'd do them in magenta, but now I'm thinking more honeysuckle.  It's such a bright and happy color.  Combining Rust-Oleum's and Behr's sites, i was able to do a mock-up of my kitchen.

Pretty, but perhaps a bit too bright?  What if I go to Deep Bloom, the next color down? And fill in the floor with gray and pop a few of the baskets up top?

sorry for the lack of photoshop skills

I kinda like it!

If I...bought this fab townhouse in Manhattan

I found this townhouse in one of my visits to Brown Harris Stevens. I just love their site and all the floorplans.

This house was recently renovated and the floorplan rocks. Garage (!) and kitchen on the first floor leading to the garden. Dining and living rooms on the second floor. A home gym (and I'm assuming the floor has been extra supported). Lots of really large bedrooms. Master bedroom on the top floor that has a balcony with Central Park views. And no worries if you're tired after a long day and don't feel like climbing 5 flights of stairs - there's an elevator.

I actually really like the way the house is decorated and would take it fully furnished. Well, I'd replace the table in the dining room - but wouldn't have to immediately. Here are some shots from the website

 
The main thing I would change is the kitchen. It just screams early 2000s. The color of the cabinets and of the granite counters. The ginormous pot rack in the middle of the room. The layout is fine - I probably wouldn't change that - and I'm sure the appliances are still great, but everything else is getting ripped out.

 
* I'd make the back and side cabinets white - possibly ever so slightly off white - and have the majority of them with glass fronts to add some light to this space.
* Then I'd have an island made out of reclaimed wood - nice and rustic.

* I'll have a hood hanging down - I think it's a mistake to remove it when you have a professional-grade stove (which I will, natch) - but mine will be brass or maybe aged copper to go with the lights.

* Because I"m replacing the lights with these Hicks egg-shaped pendants from Circa Lighting. Love them! I'll have two gigantic ones on either side of the hood and then two (not sure big or little) above the kitchen table. And all four will be evenly spaced as though they were on the same axis.

* Then I'll have a couple of porthole-style flush mounts on the far edges of the room. No recessed lighting for me! But I also don't want 50 bajillion eggs hanging from the ceiling.

* Finally, I'll paint the walls and ceiling Ralph Lauren Impressionist - a lovely and bright greyish blue. The ceilings on this floor ar 8'6" - nothing to sniff at, but the ceilings in the rest of the house are 10-12' high. So I'll try some tricks to make this floor seem as high as the others, including painting the ceiling the same as the walls.

I also like that they have a real couch as seating for the kitchen table - definitely recreating that. I'll also have a TV somewhere in here that I can view from the table or the stove. Because while this room will look like all kitchen, it really will be half family room.
Anyone have an extra $26 million lying around? Plus a bit more for the renovations...
 
 
Side note: this is part of a new series, related to What Would Debbie Do, but I'm liking the If I... title better.  This whole blog is just me playing around so WWDD could make a comeback someday.

What Would Debbie Do? My kitchen with handpainted tiles

The other day I was checking out some Italian villas based on Willow Decor's recommendation and I was completely struck with the colorful tiles, especially those on the floor.  Maybe it's the wallpapered ceiling in my powder room, but lately I'm drawn to patterns on places other than walls.  And these tiles got me thinking about my kitchen.  If I put down some fabulously colored tiles on the floor, what sort of cabinets would I then need?  And so on. 

So here's What Would Debbie Do with hand painted floor tiles in my current kitchen!

The tile I picked out is pretty dramatic and I'd want it in a big size, like 1' squares, to be even more dramatic.  I looked at ones with more white, but I just kept coming back to this pattern with the different shades of blue and touches of black.  It just seemed more versatile.  Thinkn about it - yellow gingham would sweeten things up, black would add glamor, white would brighten, a random color like coral would make it even more eclectic, etc.  Anyway, back to my design.

I HAD to go with a copper hood.  I've been a little bit obsessed with them since finding this picture and put them in every dream kitchen.  I like this one because it's a little darker so mixing it up with fixtures and hardware in other finishes will be contrasting, not clashing.

The combination of the copper hood and dramatic tile just seemed to call out for stained cabinets instead of the white ones I usually pick out for my dream kitchen.  I like these because they're a little more rustic looking.  I would do the top cabinets all with glass fronts to lighten things up a bit (and paint the backs creamy white or mustard-y yellow - not sure) and they would go alllllllll they way to the ceiling with a very, very simple moulding at the top.  Very simple hardware as well, probably oiled bronze or black to blend in with the wood. 

Below would be solid fronts and I would spend gobs of time designing these so there are pull-out shelves for all my various cook and bakeware.  The back wall of my kitchen would also get some custom cabinets on the bottom and then coordinating open shelves up top, possibly with a copper pot rack.  Or maybe the shelves would have adjustable pegs to hold up my oversized platters.

With so much going on with the floor, the backsplash needs to be simple, but I didn't want to do just paint and thought white subway tile would be too stark.  And then I found this blue-gray glass subway tile from buytile.com.  So pretty!  And at least on my computer monitor, it looks to be the same shade as one of the blues in the floor tiles.  Of course, if this were real life, I'd order samples of both to be sure, but we're dreaming here so I can make all sorts of assumptions.

And I like the color coordination, but with the dark cabinets and the dark floor and the dark backsplash (and I'm thinking a similar blue-gray on the ceiling), something's gotta be light so I made it my counters.  My sister has quartz counters and loves them so I went with the same.  The color of these is called champagne, which is my favorite type of wine.  They're made to resemble marble and actually have bits of marble in them.  They also have bits of gold, which pulls in the copper hood.  And then the sandy color is enough of a contrast to chrome and white.

Another mandatory part of all of my dream kitchens is the Lombard light from Rejuvenation.  I would get two of them so there would be plenty of light and put them both on dimmers.  I like laboratory lighting when I'm cooking, but would love to be able to have mood lighting during a party when folks are in and out of the kitchen.  Because no matter how much you put things out in the living room or how teeny tiny your kithen is, people always gather there.  And with tile like this?  The party will ALWAYS be on in the kitchen.  And I like it.

I didn't pick out the other parts of the kitchen, but picture a mammoth stainless undermount sink with a curved chrome faucet.  I'll keep my black stove because it was a gift and thus is very special to me.  Plus I think the black would fade into the background instead of competing for spotlight with the floor the way stainless would.  I would replace my fridge and dishwasher with updated versions, also in black.  A bamboo Roman shade on the window that's a lighter and more golden than the cabinets.  And a few more pieces of Le Crueset in flame to add to what I have to jazz things up even more. Because, you know, I'm all about a jazzy kitchen.

What do you think?

side note: the only downside to this kitchen is that I would have to change the living room color. Even a dustier shade of turquoise, like I want anyway, would still be too much blue for me. And while something neutral like a paperbag khaki would be pretty, I can't imagine me living in that much neutral. So that's something else to think about.  Later.

pretty pantries!

Not for me, but for my friend, Shelly.  She's the one who helped (read: did basically by herself) wallpaper my powder room.  She's planning on turning an extra closet in her dining room into a pantry, which I think is a fabulous idea - mainly because I would LOVE to have a pantry of my own!

In my shelter blog browsing today, I saw two different pantries that I wanted to pass along to Shelly.  And since I haven't posted here in a while, I decided to make a blog post instead of just emailing them to her.

First up was the pantry of House of Smiths that I found by way of her guest post at Centsational Girl.  How great is this gray and white pattern?  And it's not wallpaper or even stencil - it's vinyl cut-outs.  So clever!

Now, Shelly is a wiz at all things crafty and I can see her doing the stencil version of this, but maybe she wants something a little cheaper and easier. 

And then, browsing through Brooklyn Limestone, I saw The Stories of A to Z's reorganized pantry (and she was inspired by House of Smith's pantry, too!):

Love the bright color in the back. What a fun place for a color that really makes you smile but would be too intense somewhere else! Something bright and happy to greet you when you go to grab a box of pasta.

Shelly - getting any good ideas?  You know I'm up for helping you with this!

I love guest blog posts because they lead me in such fun directions!

weekend projects, part 1

My goal this weekend was to fully clean my first floor.  I'm throwing myself a birthday party this coming weekend and need to get my Christmas decorations back in the attic.  But then my sister invited me over for brunch.  And then my best friend got some weird infection and had to go to the hospital (seems like she should just have to be there for a few days but will be fine) so I went to hang out with her.  And so nothing was cleaned.  At all.

But I wanted to feel like I was at least a bit productive around the house.  I had a bit of time yesterday morning before visiting Amy so I decided to do a couple projects I've been putting off.

First up was hanging my spice racks.  An ex-boyfriend of mine gave my mom this spinning spice rack for Christmas once-upon-a-time.  I thought it was a stupid gift, but apparently he knew better because she loves it.  And retired her old, straight racks to the basement.  I rescued them because I was sick of hunting for a spice on the too-high-to-see shelf where I was keeping them.  First she could only find one and that was great, but it was a little too small for all of my jars.  Then she found the other one, whose racks are a little more narrow and short do don't fit everything, but they're great for food dyes and boxes of toothpicks and such.  I'm so excited to have more storage space!

I'm toying with the idea of painting them.  The more usefully-sized one I have no qualms about.  It's kind of country-ish and not in a good way.  But the other one is a little more tricky.  It's this old, beat-up wood and has great vintage charm.  And it has an eagle at the top and two little stars at the bottom. 

They'd be super fun highlighted in another color or just made shiny again, but would it then be too generic?  Or would it be like those Federal mirrors that are even cooler when painted all white? 

source

Ahhhh - I'm probably overthinking it all.  But for now, both are staying brown, even though they do take up a lot of visual space that way.

Next up - postcard collage

current fave - this kitchen

I really, really like this kitchen and wanted to put it somewhere better than my big folder called "Rooms I Love."  So here it is.  It's from Houzz.  I'm not redoing my kitchen anytime soon (probably never), but if I did, I would use this one as inspiration.

traditional kitchen design by philadelphia architect Felhandler/ Steeneken Architects

I think I'd go with white, black or dark gray counters, but I do like the concept of these (supposedly they're as sturdy as granite but look like glazed pottery).  I also think I'd go with stainless or black or white handles and drawer pulls, but maybe it's funkier IRL.  And I'm not crazy about the yellow & white combo on the solid cabinets.  I would have them all white.

But I'd definitely keep that fantastic copper hood, the glass-front upper cabinets, the brass/gold pendants (love that there are two different designs!) and the cool mosaic-y backsplash.

this weekend...

This weekend I will reorganize my kitchen.  This may or may not involve a trip to Home Depot to buy slide-out shelves for my lower cabinets that tend to be The Place Where Things Go To Die.  Seriously - I thought I lost a potholder, bought a new one, then found the lost one when I pulled out a pitcher for my holiday happy hour.  Not to mention that I had my big stainless steel mixing bowl perched precariously on top of said pitcher and somehow the potholder ended up underneath it.  Huh? 

And this is just the tiny cabinet next to the stove.  The one over on the right (where I store my fry pans, saucepans, muffin tins, cake pans, stock pots and collanders), well, lately I've just tossed items in there and hope the doors will stay shut.  It's a mess and makes me cranky.  Luckily I can remember what's in there because just opening the doors wouldn't help out a stranger in my kitchen. 

And then above my cabinets is very useful for storing even more crap, but it's incredibly unattractive.  Lately I've been dreaming about rigging a curtain up there to hide everything.  And I'm definitely not ruling that out, though I think it might look goofy.

I feel the need to just pull everything out and reorganize. Maybe I should keep useful items in the little cabinet above the oven and put those once-a-year items in the scary cabinet on the right. Maybe it's time to take down the white board and put up more shelves. Or hang a pot rack. Or a real cabinet so things won't get dusty. Though that last one might be beyond what I can accomplish this weekend.

But I can at least reorganize and get things in tidy piles again.

Note to my sister: the quesadilla maker will be moing on.  I loved it so much when you gave it to me and got a lot of use out of it, but haven't used it in several years.  George Foreman and the cocktail shaker I've never used are also hitting the bricks so it's nothing personal.

new stove!

Just a quick post that I got a new stove on Friday!  It's shiny and black and oil stays in the center of my pans and it bakes beautifully.  More pictures and details later but I had to share this picture now!

end of the year projects

Every year I manage to save enough vacation days to take off between Christmas and New Year's Day. It's my little present to myself and I never really do much of anything except luxuriate in not having to go to work for a week. I feel like I was more productive this year than before. No pictures yet, but here's a round-up of what I accomplished.

Living Room
* Hung the questionable Picasso on my gallery wall
My dad had this small painting/charcoal/type thing that he said someone said was a Picasso. There's no signature and no reason to believe the story, but I like it anyway.

* Bought and hung curtains
Before my staycation I had scoured the Internet for curtains, both for ideas and for the actual product. Do I want solid or print? Silk? Velvet? Cotton? All I knew for sure was that I wanted more than just blinds and roman shades probably weren't going to cut it either.

All of a sudden, this sworn enemy of panels was determined to buy some for her house. I was definitely leaning towards a print when I saw these indigo velvet numbers at Urban Outfitters. Oooooooooh.

I was all set to buy them when my sister suggested we go to Ikea. Looking online, I saw that they too had navy velvet curtains - for a heck of a lot less. And they were way longer, which is nice because I wanted to hang the curtains as far up the wall as possible. Done. Alison bought the same curtains in green for her living room. Yeah, we do that a lot.

But Ikea's curtain rod selection was lacking. Nothing wider than 80ish inches? Seriously? My windows aren't even especially large, just two regular sized windows next to each other, but I need something in the 90's to cover them both. So I had to wait to actually hang them. In the meantime, I draped them on the brackets leftover from the previous owners to make sure I liked the color. And yes, yes I do.

Saturday afternoon Target run. Yay! They have long curtain rods! Boo! The ones with crystal finials stop at the 80's.

Why? I know things like this are designed for a bedroom, but my bedroom windows are just as wide as those in my living room. And they would have coordinated with my coat hooks. Whatevs. The world isn't really out to get me so I moved on and bought ones with large doorknoby type finials. Of course I can't find them online, but they're kinda like these except silver and the finials are round, not square.

Last night I actually hung the curtains. The actual rod hangs about 1" below my crown molding so the fabric goes all the way up. I extended the finials to 12" beyond the edge of the window molding (which means the fabric goes about 9" beyond). I still need to play with them a bit and figure out how to make the extendable rods not move when I open and close the curtains, both just for convenience and because I need to be able to firmly tug the curtains so they expose as much of the window as possible. I can't really have the rods go any wider because then I'll end up too close to my back door. Overall though, I'm very happy with the way they look.

I may need something lighter in the summer, though the velvet would help keep them heat out like it's keeping the cold out now. Hmmmmm....

*new TV
Apparently my friends have been talking about my TV behind its back. It's a 20" tube TV, a present from an ex-boyfriend but only 4 or 5 years old. It's fine. I do watch a lot of TV and movies, but I don't have cable and whatever, it works. But when a group of friends got together with the plan to buy me a large housewarming present, their first thought was a new TV. Really? But mine works! I'd much rather have a new stove or a mattress or supa cool rug or something. Seems silly to get a new TV.

Until one of these friends bought herself a new TV. She had a 26" flat-screen TV that she always thought was fine until HER friends cajoled her into getting a new one. Her husband rejoiced and with his influence, they are now the proud owners of a gorgeous 42" flat-screen. And so I inherited her old TV, which really is heads and shoulders better than my old one. The picture is more clear, the sound is better. And it looks so much cooler. Big fan. Only problem is that it looks awful on the small dresser I have been using as a TV stand.

So I brought in the white 2-shelf bookcase from the kitchen. It's the right color and height, though not substantial enough to balance the TV. I do think I found the right multi-use stand. Need to mull it over for a little longer before I actually make the purchase.

I now have the dresser in the spot where that crappy cart was (and the cart is floating in the middle of the room). I would like to get a nice, long Parsons type table for that spot. Maybe put a couple of footstools underneath? But that's probably a ways off.

Kitchen
Okay, no real projects here, but I did get some cool stuff for Christmas! I love making cupcakes, but it's such a pain to transport them. And then for display, I use my beat-up plate stand with the barely-fitting blue glass plates and it's not that pretty anymore.



So I asked for (and received! Thanks, Mommy!) a cupcake holder and carrier from Crate and Barrel. Love, love, love. Will be trying them out when I make cupcakes for my niece's 1st birthday this weekend.

I love getting kitchen stuff for Christmas. I usually buy stuff for myself throughout the year, but there's always a few items that I really want but seem unnecessary and a bit of a splurge. Like a cupcake holder. But it makes me so happy, it's a perfect Christmas present.

Bedroom
* finished painting 2nd end table
I bought two Ikea Rast mini-dressers a month or so ago. I painted one a purple-ish magenta (very similar to the color I'm using for the room headings in this blog). The other wouldn't fit with my Venus mirror, but my old nightstand is the same height so I'm reusing that.

This nightstand was originally in a hotel in NYC and my dad bought it from them when they closed/redecorated/something. It was black with a brass ring and had been his nightstand for forever. My sister and I took it back in 1999 to use as a TV stand in our first apartment together. It was perfect for the 13" TV :) When I got a new roommate with a proper TV and stand, I stripped the black off, painted it yellow and white and it became a nightstand again. I started not liking the yellow and white in my Adams Morgan apartment, but it roughly went so I never did anything about it.

During the big snow storm, though, I finally got around to painting it the same magenta and last week I finally got around to finishing it. I love the color with the brass knob and looked for similar rings to go on the Rast, but couldn't find any so I just went with cheap brass knobs that are very nice substitutes (and cheap enough so if I DO find rings, I won't cry over the expense).

* figured out color scheme
I went about this in the completely wrong manner and it's been frustrating, but ultimately satisfying.

I started with the pink bedspread. It's slightly too bubblegum, but that's part of what makes it a happy color.

Then I had this image of brass lamps and thought gray would contrast nicely with that so I went to Home Depot and picked out paint chips. Pale, pale inside-of-a-shell pink for the walls + trim + ceiling, magenta for the end tables, dark gray for sheets, duvet (which would be folded at the end of my bed) and curtains and then all of my brown wood furniture. No white at all in the room.  Elegant yet modern, reserved yet girlie.  Perfect, right?  Only problem was I couldn't find gray anywhere and then once I started finally seeing it in stores, it left me cold.

Then I saw a post on Apartment Therapy about bohemianish bedrooms and knew that's what I needed to do. Yes, I'm always drawn to crisp, cool bedrooms - blues, greens, clear yellows, but I have this pink bedspread and these magenta nightstands and the brass calling out to me and I had to go with it.

So when I was at Ikea, I bought a dark orange duvet cover. And immediately upon seeing it, I knew that I needed wood blinds for the room, but my sister wouldn't let me buy them. She doesn't understand that my impulses are almost always right and felt that I needed to make sure the orange was right first. I went along with her, but knew I was right.

And so at the same Target run where I bought rods for the living room, I picked up some bamboo blinds for my bedroom. I'm not 100% sure that they'll fit (and obviously I haven't hung them yet) so it's nice to see that there are greater size options online in case I need to exchange.

I'm very excited about all of this. I have no idea when I'll get around to painting the walls, but my bedroom is very close to being finished. And I like that it sort of decorated itself. Each purchase dictated the next instead of going along with a mood board. Very organic.

Up Next:
* outdoor furniture
* paint powder room
* paint dining table
* paint coffee table (?)
* paint living room end table (?)

updates of decorating ideas

Paint:

I cashed in my AmEx points for Home Depot gift cards and am going to splurge on Ralph Lauren paint. From what I've read, it's much better than Behr and it's a heck of a lot more convenient for me than Benjamin Moore.

Living room: Have decided to go with a more turquoise blue. Believe it is Blue Island.

Upstairs bathroom: Light Sky

Powder room: Harbor

Kitchen: Racer Pink

Woodwork: Picket Fence

Furnishings:
Bedroom: ordered a magenta coverlet from Crate and Barrel and it should arrive tomorrow. I still don't know what color to paint the walls, but I do know that I don't want to keep my current soft blue duvet. And I'm not so sure that a bold color is right for the walls. I'm leaning towards either a sunshiney cream or maybe a cameo-ish pink. Something soft and more like the morning light. And even if I don't like the coverlet, at least it will get me further down the road of figuring out what I DO like!

Living room: bought a mirror for $25 yesterday at Ross! Super excited about this. It's a bit oversized but not huge and a square-ish rectangle. Very simple black frame and a 1/2" bevel around the edge. Figure I'll put it up as is for now, but maybe will paint or silverleaf it in the future? And if I don't like it there, I'll just put it somewhere else. It's so simple and basic and cheap!

Dining room: think I've decided to go with the Martin chairs from Ikea. I'm going to head over there this weekend to try them out and, if I like them in person, to buy 4. My original plan was to buy unfinished chairs and either stain or paint them, but really - I'm never going to get around to that and in the meantime the chairs will get all beat up. I like that these are black - I think it will be a nice graphic element for the room and I really like that they stack. Because they really aren't my ideal chair, but they'll work for now. And then once I do get my ideal chair, I can stack these up in the attic and just pull them out when I need extra seating.
Fingers crossed that they're comfortable!

And I really want a new dining table. I have one from Ikea that I bought 11 years ago to use as more of a desk. It's unfinished and I need to stain or paint it, but it's fine. It seats 4 people but is a rectangle so there's room for my larger plates and serving dishes.

But what I reeeeally want is a dropleaf table. The middle section would be wide enough so I and one other person could have a simple meal with it closed, but the sides would come all the way down so it looked more like a sideboard. Then I could open up the sides and it would seat 6-8 people for a dinner party or to play a board game or whatever. I've found several on ebay that are going for between $600 - 1,000 so this is definitely something I need to save up for. And, of course, check out local shops and craigslist. But I'm excited to know it's out there!