I love our kitchen. Sunlight bounces off the white patio wall and dances around our own as yet unpainted walls, filling the kitchen up brightly all day. The marble counter (a little too dark to find the ants when they come—my only complaint) angles out away from the window, leaving a nook for a table and chairs, which is great for us since our dining room area is being used as the office. We don’t have a kitchen table set though; for now we’re eating off a white plastic build-it-yourself patio table with uneven legs. We wheel our office chairs in from the dining room when it’s time to eat. I can’t wait until we have the kitchen all finished and furnished. Jeff’s condo will have a hearth and really feel like a home.
To that end, he and I have been searching for a kitchen table-and-chairs set. He wants new, clean, and shiny. I don’t want to spend $800 for Formica-topped particle board that we have to assemble ourselves. At a consignment store, I found one table that I just loved—glossy golden wood, rough-hewn, heavy. The kind of table that would require five hefty villagers to carry it. The chairs were also farmhouse originals: solid, with a red gingham print for the cushions. It was the perfect size too, but at nearly $2000 for the set, a little out of our price range. Apparently it wasn’t just any consignment shop, and Jeff has a hard time understanding how anything used can be so expensive, antique or not.
I decided to look on Craigslist. I found a kitchen set I loved—my grandmother’s! Rockport maple (I’ve since learned), six chairs and a round four-foot table with two ten-inch extensions, for $125. It looked great in the photo, dark maple wood gleaming in the sunlight, purple cushions beckoning me to sit down. I stared at the photo while my grandmother served up red plastic mugs, the ice sizzling as the soda was poured, and a bowl of pretzels, the thick sourdough twists that crumbled all over when bitten into. The wave of nostalgia was too strong. With my sister and now mother up in arms about my blog writing, my upcoming wedding, my apparent selfishness, my …. who knows what else since they still aren’t speaking to me, I could really use a big hug from my grandmother.
