The Dining Room Shuffle

The dining room refresh is in full swing! One of our goals for this year was to get our home to a place where it’s working harder for us. That will look different for everyone, depending on your own needs, wishes and like-to-haves. For us, it means we’re refreshing paint colors (correcting decisions made 8 years ago), fine tuning toy storage, clearing out kitchen cabinets, and – perhaps our favorite thing we’ll do this year – we’re preparing our home for future gatherings.

The Dining Room Shuffle

Our dining table was an accidental purchase many, many years ago from an outlet. It’s a beautiful table and has served us so well! It easily accommodates 6 people, and it has seen countless messes and spills, yet it handles everything with grace. The mango wood is gorgeous (even more so after its yearly oiling), and any dents or scratches that have occurred over the years only add to its charm. But! It’s time to say goodbye.

We have always wanted a big round table, one where our friends and family can get cozy, laugh until their sides hurt, pass the salad and bread and cheers and make eye contact with everyone. Round tables are so special, don’t you think? They encourage you to nestle in, they provide a sense of community. We’ve always thought that our space was too small for a round table, but after laying down tape to get a sense of how the room would flow, we are sold! Above, we created a 65″ circle with a 30″ pedestal base.

Going Custom

There are a few round tables that have held a special place in my heart, but they are either too small, too big, too dark, too light. I’ve long loved this oak pedestal table, and after crossing my fingers for the last year that they’ll offer it in a larger size, I’ve moved on. Here are a few others that caught my eye (you’ll notice they all have similar lines; pay no attention to material):

We ultimately reached out to Norman Leigh, and we’ve decided to go custom! After commissioning them to create the Tree House Table of Our Dreams, we have full confidence that they can do the same here! You might be surprised by the cost of a custom table. In our case, the quote was no different than a nice table from a big box store, but we’ll get exactly what we want. Below, a photo of the dreamboat table we dreamed up for Tree House, created by Norman Leigh:

We already sent Leigh-Anne photos of our inspiration table, and now we’re dialing in the details. We’re asking ourselves, What do we want the edge profile to look like? How thick do we want the top? What kind of wood and finish do we want? Which brings me to…

Wood + Stain Options

We debated between oak and maple, but since most of the wood in our home is oak, that’s what we’ll stick to. Norman Leigh has been loving and experimenting with a new product called Rubio Monocoat, which has the most beautiful finishes! (Here’s a stunning coffee table they recently built and finished with Cotton White.) They’ll be providing us with oak samples in these finishes that caught our eye (below). Which one would you choose?! It’s going to be a tough decision.

Dining Chairs: To Buy Or Not to Buy?

We love, love, love our dining chairs. We have 4, so we’ll need to buy at least 2 more. In our current dining set up, we have 2 extra bistro chairs that we pull up when we have guests (remember having guests?). But with our new table, we’ll have 6 chairs at all times, and we’ll use the extra 2 bistro chairs for a larger gathering. Wow, we’ll be able to seat 8 people for the first time!

All this to say, we can’t seem to commit to purchasing 2 more of the same chairs. While we love them (to the moon and back), Catfish’s fur is a magnet to them. We’re debating faux leather – at the very least, something wipeable – but no wood or plastic. Since we work from our dining table, they need to be extra comfortable.

Do you have chairs you cherish that sound like it could fit the bill? If so, please share in the comments!

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

The most difficult part of going custom is the wait, but we’ve waited this long, right? Sing it with me: The waaaiiiting is the hardst part. And to our friends and family: We couldn’t be more excited to hang out with you again – around this table with good food, better wine and lots of cake. Soon, we hope!