Decorating decisions made in the kitchen usually reveal our deepest passions. The front of the house can be all sedated, safe, and reflect the latest paint colors and decorating style, but the kitchen is where we go wild, lavishly displaying our favorite collections, whether it be farm animals (pigs and roosters), vintage Mexican glass bottles, or cookie jars. This makes the kitchen the most authentic room in the house.
This is why, maybe because we feel so comfortable there, that the kitchen table is where life’s daily drama is played out. Sofas will come and go over time, but the kitchen table remains, for years, as the altar of the home. It’s easy for us to cherish our kitchen tables; love just happens there, step by step, day by day. I’d love to hear your favorite kitchen table memory. (Write a post, email is fine, or leave a comment — whatever.)
Utility: It’s best not to spend a lot of money on the table, as you be fraught with worry. There will be scratches, spills, and the pencil marks from homework might go through the wood. Accept these “love taps” as marks of love. I have found, however, that it’s a good idea to spend enough money to make sure the legs are sturdy.
Lavishly Spread the Warmth With Friends: Sure, they will try to play a round of four-on-four in your living room, and then hold a wrestling match in your basement, but the good cheer will be worth it. Especially when they start one-upping each other with their worst injury stories ever. You will learn so… much… truly, you will.
Be Open to Hosting Vigilantes: You just never know who might show up in need of a sustenance. So, be vigilant, stay prepared, and have plenty of crackers on-hand. (And a very good vacuum cleaner.)
Obligation: You may be called on to do service for others… providing shelter for gumdrops, engineering a way to affix graham crackers, and to remind others not to eat the glue. Note again here, why the sturdiness of the table is so critical.
Allow Quiet Time For Contemplation: Discovery, insight and a deeper understanding of our world can only happen in the stillness that occurs between our breaths. How many of us remember those moments of epiphany generated from kitchen table talks, late at night? Here, in this picture, he’s deep in thought, trying to figure out how to get the houses from Monopoly to fit on his fingertips. Whew! Talk about revelation and Epiphanies! I’m telling you, there is a lot of DEEP thoughts that go on around this house. (I don’t need to mention it again, do I? About the importance of a sturdy table?)
Creativity: There’s always something new under the sun. Keep yourself open to new possibilities, and protect the table with plenty of newspaper.
Love: This picture just speaks for itself. I have nothing more to add.
I just love love love love this blog 🙂
One of the requirements for any homes we will live in is that our table must fit in it. It was made by my husband’s great-grandfather for his son, and the top is made of an amazingly thick and long hunk of wood. Plus it’s a trestle table, so it’s totally sturdy. My kids are now the fourth generation to use that table. It’s a keeper.
I just love the pics of the boys on the table. So cute 🙂
I love that first picture. One of my children used to climb onto the table like that. Thanks for the memory.
At the beach, my grandmother would bring a new tablecloth each Memorial Day to put on the kitchen table. We rarely took off the one from the year before so you could go back in time by lifting the layers of tablecloths.
At our house, we had a round table for the kids in our kitchen (no fighting among the 6 of us to see who sat at the head of the table there). It had one thick leg in the middle that had an opening near the top. Periodically, we’d take off the top to see what my younger brothers had hidden in the leg. I wonder what we’d find there now?
Requirements for our kitchens – they must be big because that’s where EVERYONE gathers (regardless of whether you’ve spent the better part of two days cleaning the rest of the house for a party and just not gotten to the kitchen before everyone arrives, that is where they will congregate). And it must be yellow. I don’t know why (cheerful, sunny) but it always is in our family and if it’s not, we change that rather quickly. I love kitchens!
Fabulous memory. And true, the kitchen is the place to be, regardless of how clean and beautiful the other rooms are. You can count on that at every party. We had a yellow kitchen growing up too
That first photo is just beautiful. They are all sweet, but there’s something about that first one that warms me. Thanks.
We’ve replaced our table with a granite topped island…doesn’t get much sturdier than that. But we waited far too long to make this move. For the first six years of my son’s life we had a glass kitchen table. We are such rookie parents!
Love this post! My dining room table was my favorite Aunts and when I was still a single mom and moved into the city, to make life a bit easier (you know, carting around the royal princess and such), she passed it on to me and got a new one. I remember my beloved Gram Julia having meals with me on that table when we used to visit my favorite Aunt, so it reminds me of my Gram too. It’s huge and oak and just wonderful for fitting everyone in. The chairs have tall backs and very padded seats, comfy for long dinners. And how bizarre is it that it perfectly matches the dining room in the house of the man I married? People think we got it for that purpose! So my table is no longer a huge table for B and I and her little friends…it now houses hers and my stepsons every single dinnertime!
I just adore this post – the picture of the little guy in the window full of art made my heart swell.
kitchens and tables do mean a lot. i get more compliments on my bright yellow kitchen!
PM, I can totally see you with a bright yellow kitchen! Fits your cherry personality.
There’s so much about that first photo which makes it a great shot. From the reflections in the windows to the snow in the yard to the soft back o his baby neck. Your kitchen (and kitchen table) are to die for….
Susie this is a GREAT post..you told 842957 stories on just one little post..and it was so sweet..and the central character was made of wood… You are magic!
Kitchen Table at mom and dads: haircuts…standing on the table to have a dress hemmed…cleaning out the bird cage..trying to bake my first cake..reading the newspaper… eating my cereal every morning…squeezing my friends around the table at my 12th bday party…
Yep..you are correct@!
Wonderful. As usual.
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