A New Kitchen Table

How do you say goodbye to a kitchen table you have had in your home for over 22 years?  One at which you have had many meals and enjoyed interesting dinner time conversations with family and friends.  One at which you have so many old fond memories.  But, at my wife’s urging and with my concurrence, that is exactly what we did in March of 2026.

But first I need to backup and give some history.

We moved into our current home in July of 1999.  The kitchen table we brought here was a butcher block table from our previous home.  And it seemed to fit nicely in our new kitchen bay window area.

For over four years, this was the kitchen table we had and for Thanksgiving in 2003, we even moved it into our great room butted up against our dining room table to create a long table to accommodate all our family in one room.

But over that four-year period, I would occasionally think it was too small for the space it was in.  It really hit me as being too small the time I had some of my employees over for dinner one night and we all had to squeeze around that table.  Being a solid wooden table, there was no leaf to add to make it longer.

Then one day in 2004, my wife and I were at a modern Scandinavian furniture store and found the one pictured above at the beginning of this post.  I fell in love with it.  And it even came with eight leather chairs.

The first significant party it witnessed was in December of that year when our three children threw us a 25^th wedding anniversary party.

In 2007, my wife and I both tired of the grapevine wallpaper redecorated the kitchen.  After scrubbing down the wallpaper, I painted in my wife’s chosen color—bright orange!  And the table still looked good there.

Then in 2010, we totally updated our kitchen with new flooring, granite countertops, painted cabinets, and a much more neutral wall color.

A big motivation for doing the kitchen update at that time was we would be having numerous guests in our home before and after our daughter’s wedding in June of 2011.

In preparation for that event, the table served as the staging area for the wedding reception place cards.

In 2014, another big event occurred around the table when we hosted a party for my wife’s lifelong friend who had been diagnosed with cancer and would be living temporarily in Nashville to receive her stem-cell treatment (a complete success as she is still going strong).

Then in 2015, before hopping in her booster seat at the table, our intown granddaughter discovered the table was almost like a cave under which she could explore.

In May of 2017, our granddaughter got to share a meal with her six-month older cousin when he came to town for a visit.

Many birthdays have been celebrated at that table…

…and even recently when lots of cousins came to town for a visit.

Whenever my siblings came to town for one of our SibSabs, in the mornings we would sit around the table, drinking coffee and having a wonderful conversation catching up while playing our morning games together (sorry no photos of us in pajamas before our shower).

But certainly, a photo opportunity while enjoying one of my grilled-out steaks.

Over the years of building all these memories, the glass top was so easy to take care of as we could easily clean it with a spray glass cleaner, but the leather chairs did not fare so well.

In fact, two of the eight chairs had gotten so poor looking, we put them in the attic.

One of the cool things I love about this table is it has a unique feature that when the two ends are pulled away from the middle of the table, the center leaf pops down and then the two ends can be pushed back together to make a smaller table (the reverse process pops the center leaf back up).

However, we did not leave the table in its shorter version with just six chairs as it seemed to be dwarfed by the space.  We even tried finding replacement chairs with the same metal finish but could never find an exact match much less even a close match.  So, a new table it was to be.

My wife searched diligently online for several weeks trying to find a replacement.  When she found one she liked, the website had a feature that allowed you to aim your phone camera where the table would go and the website superimposed an image of the table on your phone.  We were both satisfied and my wife placed the order, finding chairs to match as well.

But what were we going to do with the existing table?  Being extremely heavy with a metal frame and thick glass, we knew we could not move it ourselves.  My wife searched and found a local company that, for a fee, would pick it up and deliver it to the non-profit organization we wanted to donate it to.  On a Friday around lunchtime, they showed up to get it along with the eight chairs.

The movers debated how to get it safely outside without damaging the table and decided the best option was to take the three glass panels off the table by removing all the screws holding them in place.

Interestingly, the truck delivering the new table and chairs showed up even before the old table was disassembled and taken outside.

Once the new items were dollied inside, we unboxed the chairs first saving the three large boxes (two chairs in each box) for our in-town grandchildren to play in them.

Once we unboxed the table, attached the legs, and inserted the leaf, we had our new table which my wife and I both thought looked very nice indeed.

Now we could begin to make new memories around this table.  In fact, it was received just days before our oldest son and grandson were flying in for a spring-break visit.  So, it got broken in very quickly!