Design Conundrum

I'm having a design issue with an area in our house, and I need help!  Hello, there, internet!  Come to my aid!  Give me advice!   Bring me inspiration!

Early this summer, we had a massive garage sale with my parents.  One of the things we got rid of was our breakfast table, which we bought long ago, within the first week we moved to Boston.  When we bought it, we were living in Harvard Square and had no car, and for those of you who are familiar with Cambridge, you will appreciate that Nathan carried that heavy table all the way from Central Square to our apartment in Harvard Square in order to get it home.  Now, this table was perfect for our life in Boston.  It was round, 42" across, and we bought two chairs with wicker seats to go with it.  Two sides of the table folded down so that we could set it against a wall with no wasted space.  In our first tiny apartment, the table served as a kitchen/dining table, and in our second, roomier apartment, it had a cheerful little place near the windows in our kitchen.

In our new house in Houston, this table still fit.  Our breakfast area is fairly small, and even a 42" table with chairs fills it up (the standard size is 48").  But by the time we sold this piece, it had seen better days.  The leaves which folded down were sagging and no longer sat flat when we had them propped up, which we now needed to do to maximize the eating space.  This meant that with all the wiggling at our table at dinnertime, Jane's soup sometimes ended up on the floor.  And the other reason it wasn't really working for us anymore was because it only had two matching chairs, and there are now five of us.  Plus, the seats of the chairs were wicker, and although that's not the worst thing--fabric would be much worse--kids' food did get stuck in there regularly.

So I've been searching for a replacement table and chairs for our breakfast area, to no avail.  Here are my criteria: I want a table that is 42-45" across, because I think 48" is just not going to leave enough room for chairs to back in and out.  I need it to be a pedestal table so that we can fit more than four chairs around it without bumping into table legs.  And I do not want leaves that fold down, because eventually I would have the soup-falling-on-the-floor problem again.  I also don't want to spend a bunch of money on this table, but I don't want it to be a piece of junk, either.  And my last qualification is that I would really like chairs with wooden seats.

So here's my Conundrum Number One: can five or six chairs even fit around a 42-45" table?  Has anyone tried that?  I'm even wondering if we can all eat at a 42" table--we were squeezed pretty tightly before, and there were only four of us.

Conundrum Number Two: If I cannot find the right round table and chairs in my price range, would a rectangular table work in my space?  I haven't figured that out yet.  The area is quite small, and you need to be able to walk around it to get to the laundry room and back door.

Conundrum Number Three: Other than Craig's List, where can I find an inexpensive set?  I have scoured Craig's List for months to no avail.  I've also looked at Target, Joss & Main, Pier 1, and several other places.  I like this table a lot, but I can't convince myself that it's a good idea to spend that much (plus chairs), since we have a lot of other projects around the house that we need to do.

Help, friends!  Do you have any thoughts?

A Family Quilt

 I finally posted some better photos of Janey Beth's flower blanket here.  Go check them out!

 In the meantime, I'd like to show you something else.

This is a quilt that was given to my great-grandmother, Granny Lou.  It has a special story behind it.

Granny Lou volunteered for many years as a Pink Lady at her local hospital in small-town Mississippi.  One year, the Pink Ladies got together and made this quilt together to sell in an auction.  Then, you know what they did?  After all the hours and love they put into this quilt, they went and bought it--for $500--and gave it to Granny Lou to thank her for all her years of volunteer work.

Not only do I like the quilt for its own sake--the colors and the starburst pattern are so happy--but I also love having a piece of family history in my possession.  Especially one with such a great story that honors what a great Granny Lou I had. :)  One day, I think it'd be neat to crochet a blanket to go with it.

Deep Thought for the Day

Deep Thought for the Day:
Nathan is pickier than I am about home decor.  Oh, it's not just me who makes decorating go so slowly! 

Seriously, this was an Aha Moment for me today.  Since I tend to take on the role of decorator, the fact that we still have some blank walls and windows is, I tend to think, because I'm not on top of it, don't have enough time to find what I want, or I'm not decisive enough.  But you know what it also is?  Nathan!

He has always had strong opinions about surprising things.  The first time this happened was with our wedding china.  He wanted gold, not platinum.  Ivory, not white.  I wasn't too picky about those particulars, as long as the pattern was pretty, and we found something we liked.  But, at the time, I was so surprised that he cared about china, of all things!

It used to be that his strong decorating opinions only popped up every once in a blue moon.  But now it is more of a regular thing.  So that I think I've finally decided on something--and, definitely, it takes me a while to get there, since I'm pretty picky, too--I tell Nathan about it, and he doesn't like it for one reason or another.  (Is this because we are both perfectionists??)  The result is that we remain in a state of limbo.  With naked walls and windows in a good portion of our house.

This is a problem, y'all.  We need to figure this out, because two years is too long to live in a house with naked windows. Life is short. :)

So here is our latest decorating conundrum.  I like these frames.  Scratch that; I love them.  I love gothic arches, and I recently went to a friend's house who had lots of window frame mirrors, which you do see everywhere once you start looking for them.  So I went hunting on Etsy and found these, which I love (they go perfectly with the prints of Cambridge gothic architecture in our dining room), and the guy will even put mirrors in them, if we want:

But Nathan says that mirrors are only for hanging in a place where they're useful.  That they seem over the top if they're purely decorative.  That a purely decorative mirror is not "classic."

Aaargh!

My opinion: 1.) It is perfectly acceptable to have a purely decorative mirror.  2.) Decorative mirrors are, in fact, classic. 3.) And, actually, not everything in our house has to be classic; we can have whimsical and fun things, too.

So, friends, what do you think?  Here's your opportunity to chime in.  Are mirrors okay as decor, or do they need to be in a place where you'd actually want to fix your hair?

:)

Before and After: Master Bathroom

This was our master bathroom, up until about a week ago.

Please note the butterfly wallpaper, outdated colors, 60's trim on the cabinets, and--best of all--the carpet.

After things literally began falling apart in this room, we decided it was finally time to go ahead and renovate it.  Although the layout is not optional--it's very long and narrow--we opted not to move anything around because of the potential expense (we don't intend to be in this house a terribly long time, and it wouldn't have been worth it).  So we painted, had a tub put in (hooray!), and got all new tile and finishes.  We're pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Here are some pictures of the finished job:

The shower tile.  Rather than going with a tan/brown color, as seems to be the style these days, we went with white.  These tiles are white marble.  Nathan preferred natural stone; how can you deny a geologist a request like that?  :)

I now have a bathtub!  So exciting! ;)

We're pretty pleased with the way it turned out, and we've definitely been enjoying it since it was finished about a week ago!

In the Last Few Days

 In the last few days, . . . 

. . . our backyard went from this . . .

. . . to this!

 

This truck brought the huge amount of sod that went in the backyard.  And this wasn't even all of the grass.

 We actually didn't intend to do such a thorough renovation of our backyard, but one thing led to another, and we did.  After all has been said and done, we are really enjoying it!  Hiring someone to pull all the old overgrown plants out, level the dirt, clear the drains, take down the dead trees, and lay down sod has made a huge difference in our enjoyment of our backyard.  It even got rid of most of the mosquitoes, a benefit we did not foresee.  Now we just need a kiddie pool to make the summer complete!

I found a little watermelon growing on the vine!  Isn't it cute?

 

My first pregnancy photo: 26 and a half weeks.

 There's nothing like love at the grocery store.

And I leave you with this:

Lately

Noah and Jane in a sandbox at my parents' house.
They sure do love a good sandbox!

Noah's friend, Saber, had a field day birthday party. Here's the sack race. Look who's in the lead!

The winner!

Jane and Noah took good swings at the pinata, which ended up being completely indestructible. In the end, the parents had to stab it and rip it open to get the candy out.

Happy girl.

Noah and me!

Grandpa, swinging Noah T.

On the carousel at the mall. He was mad that we were going to leave after only one ride.

But I told him to be grateful and smile. It was less that I cajoled him into it and more that I threatened him into it. Ha! My parenting skills could probably use some work here.

Jane is a climber and is constantly getting up onto the counter and swiping fruit for herself.
She doesn't usually get three or four at a time, though.

Nathan, after cutting down some extra brush in our backyard, including a tree. (We have all KINDS of stuff growing back there--ugh.) If you can believe it, there is still an incredible amount of stuff to pull up or cut down.

The kids with my mom at her desk at school.

We went strawberry picking a couple of weeks ago! Here's Jane with her friend, Elizabeth.

Noah, Jane, and their friend, Moriah.

And my cuties.

Before and After: The Kitchen

Here is my first set of before and after shots:
The Kitchen!

Before:

The entire kitchen, breakfast room, and family room were painted this odd color. We think they were trying for a light colored wood grain look, but it was not very successful.

That oven ended up having to be replaced right away. It was 40 degrees off, and the knobs fell off in my hand.

We also got new counters and floors.

After:

Our "new" kitchen!
(The fridge still needs to be moved back in place in this pic--oops.)

This picture is taken from the same perspective as one of the "before" pics. Very different now!

We had this little bookshelf built at the end of the counter, and I really like it. It's the perfect place for my cookbooks, and the little knick-knacks are all kid friendly.

Because this house did not have a pantry, we had one built. It's there in the corner on the right.

Love those drawers! How awesome is it not to have to bend way down to see what's in the back on that lowest shelf?
Also, now I have enough room to have each drawer devoted to a category of food: potatoes/onions/bags of fruit, all baking ingredients, canned goods, and spices. I'm a little nerdy about it, but it makes me feel very satisfied to be that organized.

By a long shot, we've done more in this room than in any other (other than the bathrooms, most of the house just needed fresh paint more than anything else). And so far, I'm really enjoying our new kitchen! We still have some painting details to finish up and so on, but all the major stuff is done, and I think it came out well. It's much lighter and brighter, which is what we were aiming for.