Do You Want To See My $20 Table?

Bought this table for $20 last February.  It was a Craig's List find.  When we went to pick it up it was in pieces and had no hardware.  Once I got it assembled (without hardware), I realized that it was way too short.  For what it is worth, it turns out that a standard table is 30" tall and my little bargain was topping out at 28".  So, it lived in the garage waiting for me to deal with it for 8 months.

In the meantime, last spring I took a woodshop class at a local high school so I could learn how to properly use all of Superman's cool garage toys.  (Made a folding Adirondack chair...it is super cool.)  I really enjoyed the class and the instructor allowed me to sign Valiant up this fall.  While he's been busy learning to use the tools and making his own Adirondack chair, I brought my table to the experts for a little guidance.  One 'lift kit' later, I have a table that is almost counter height.  (Hearing them tell me I needed to make a "lift kit" immediately made me thing of "Pimp My Ride" and, ever since, I've been thinking that I was pimping my table.  Weird, I know.)  Anyway, the lift kit was made of scrap wood and a few of my hours, so the newly lifted table is still a $20 steal. 

I didn't even have to refinish the table...it just needed some orange oil and elbow grease.  It worked out so beautifully...I finally became one of those people who found something fabulous on Craig's List.

Don't you love it?   The table ended up being 33" inches tall, which might be too tall for a lot of you, but actually worked out to be terrific for us.   (Oh, and the chairs are from Target...so it is NOT a $20 dining room.)

Evolution of an Eat-in Kitchen

When we first moved into this house almost five years ago, we used our dining area/eat-in kitchen as our dining room. This house was built without a dining room. Unfortunately, the step down that you can see clearly in the third picture (with Charming on the dark loveseat) made the dining room cramped and actually unsafe for the person who sat at the end of the table.

Within a year, I moved the dining room table into the room that is supposed to be the living room. It eventually ended up looking like this and has worked really well for us.

But what to do with the "dining room" space? Well, for a long while I played with it as a seating area. The family always gathers here when I'm cooking or baking. When guests come over, they want congregate in the kitchen area. Here is the first iteration. A dark loveseat and a leather chair facing it created a conversation area. The problem? The ottoman collected "stuff" and was never cleared off for any amount of time. We needed a change. (This dark loveseat is now in my room.)
Then we have it with the white Klippan couch from Ikea. A little Ikea table that I got for something like $25 in the as-is section was pushed up against my kitchen cupboard. The birdhouse was moved (I hated the way the feathers collected under the table). The big problem? Again, stuff just collected on that table and the table was never used the way I thought it would be.
I don't have a picture, but I ended up taking the table down and storing it (again) and putting a bent wood rocker in the corner to create a conversation area. No ottoman or coffee table to collect stuff. No rug to collect dog fur. Simple and easy.

Then Valiant wanted the Klippan couch in his room, so I put the futon in its place.
This is how the space stayed for quite some time. It wasn't very pretty, but it worked. Then Superman left for his new job. Charming was away at college and the two kids and I didn't want to eat all our meals at the big table. The bent wood rocker was put away (a good thing, too, as the cane wasn't holding up well). I moved the "craft" table from Buttercup's room and put the futon in its place (it is awesome for sleepovers!). I brought out my as-is Ikea bar stools (from my California house...finally had a use for them because the craft table is counter height!) and we started using this as our table. I loved the the size and the layout, but I hated that the ends were shelving, not open like a table. The space was still only "kind of" working for us. This morning, however, inspiration struck!

I took the craft table apart and used the two shelf ends as one big shelf and added a melamine "shelf" from Home Depot to finish the top. I brought back the table that I'd had in the room with the white sofa, as well as bringing back one of the rugs I've moved to various places in the house. Finally, I brought in some of my dining room chairs. Ta Da! A room that is comfortable, functional, and attractive. All for $11.43 (the price of the shelf on top of the "bookcase"). The dog is just eye-candy.


So, the moral of the story? Keep tweaking until you get it the way you want it. As long as you only have furniture you like, you will eventually get to a room you love.

What about you? Do your rooms evolve? Do you think I'm crazy? Does it work for you?

The Dining Room is Done

...but I haven't made much progress on the Family Room....sigh.

Here is the completed Dining Room. I am really pleased and, while I'm still not 100% in favor of the current cushion covers, they're really fine for summer. I figure once I'm done with them, I'll use them on the patio to cover those cushions, so they'll get plenty of use. I'm looking to find a nice red fabric with texture or depth that doesn't look "country" or "velour". (I know what I mean, even ifI didn't explain it well.)

It is difficult to convey spatial qualities and perspective in photos, but the room feels roomy without feeling empty. Everyone feels as if they can lean back, scoot out, and generally stretch out without bumping something--even with the table fully extended (which it is not in the photos). We used the same shelves in a different arrangement and actually ended up leaving out one of the pictures. (I thought Superman would cry when he put molly bolts into the walls he'd just patched and painted.) We added the gymnast, which my dad just sent last week, and the recessed lighting lands right on her at night. We managed to keep it "dressed up" without making it stuffy by keeping the whimsy (yes, those are dinosaurs on the floor - they used to be my mom's) and mixing it throughout the room. All in all, it works for us.

Phew! Now if I can just figure out what to do with the Family Room!

The Dining Room - Still Working on It!

So, if you read the previous post, you know I cannibalized two leather chairs from the dining room to complete the living room. (Mr. R was kind enough to pretend to sleep after his Father's Day dinner to demonstrate just how comfortable these chairs really are. Wasn't that nice of him?)

Admittedly, the chairs shouldn't have been in the dining room, but since we turned our designated living room into our dining room, it was the only room they'd fit into.

Now, what will we do with the dining room now that we've taken those huge chairs out of it?


This was the dining room before. Functional and attractive (at least to my eye), but crowded when it came to holiday dinners and Game Night. I'm excited to have the chairs out of there, but thinking we'll be struggling with the room for awhile. This is the plan so far:

Placed this neat little table on the wall where the chairs had been, took down the wall shelves on the two walls, and shifted the buffet, the red rug, and the dining room table to be more centered in the room. Right now we're thinking that the wall with the fish picture will get two shelves back up, but the wall with the flower picture won't. But maybe I should put the shelves on either side of that picture, too? I can't decide.
I love being able to put my extra chairs in the dining room, but I don't have fabric to recover those two cushions, so my search continues (plus, I loved the fabric I made the seat covers out of, but I'm not sure I love it in the room...I think it is too busy). It just isn't working for me. What do you think?



So, this is the second room my little idea messed up. Notice all the spackle? Because of our cats (remember this?), the shelves were extremely well-anchored into the walls and removing them left big holes. Poor Superman!