Tip #190: Gather around a table.
It’s been a noticeably dark December. Not in the doom and gloom kind of way—though to be sure, there’s plenty of that to be found in the world outside of this tiny apartment—but in the way where it’s felt like the sun has just given up on fully rising. Our windowpanes have been fogged up and splattered with rain more often than I can count. Every evening after school Silas comes home aghast that the sky has darkened outside the window and that it’s not yet dinnertime. Every morning he wakes up before daybreak to wonder aloud if it’s time for breakfast or “still time for sleeping.” (Our feelings on the answer to this question differ.)
It’s no wonder that we do so much gathering together in this time of year; so much sharing of meals and sweets, so much lighting of candles and twinkle lights. We need light and we need each other, in December maybe most of all.
Just before Thanksgiving, a new table wended its way into this tiny Brooklyn apartment. You might recall that for the past year or so we’ve been using two smaller tables pushed together to form one larger one. The combined tables gave us the space we needed, but the abundance of table legs and the tendency for our kids to inadvertently (or quite on purpose) push the tables apart during a meal was tiresome. (RIP faithful water glasses and sanity.)
Last year, Michaele and Johannes of Kalon Studios reached out to see if they might be able to offer our family the gift of a table that better suited our needs. As I’m wont to do, I waffled and wavered. But they helped me to decide on a size that would be right for our family and our apartment and our four old chairs. I measured and measured again and played around with different configurations of furniture plus masking tape to try to envision what was both possible for this space and nimble enough to move with us should that time come.
The best way to go about these things, as I’ve said so often before, is slowly. To suss out what will be helpful and what will last. The furniture-making itself is a slow and careful craft, too. There’s the lumber to mill and the craftspeople to enlist. From design to built object there’s a world of decision making and materials sourcing and honing that needs to be done.
On the night the table arrived, I’d made lentils with turmeric. On the day after it arrived, we hosted my sister and her family for pizza and salad and requisite red wine. It takes some confidence and a bit of faith to allow your young children and boisterous family to splatter turmeric broth and pizza sauce atop a newly arrived American ash table, but Michaele and Johannes had assured me the table could weather the storms of a young family and it has.
There’s a lot of small space advice that questions the value of a large table in a home with limited square footage. I respect the choice against a large table, but I don’t agree with it. For me, there’s something so special and sacred about having a solid surface to gather around. As much as the food that’s served there, the table itself becomes a place of nourishment. I’m not sure I’ve ever sat down at a table without also breathing a sigh of relief. Have you? Dinnertime around the table is the moment in my day when I can most clearly see my kids and their sweet, concentrated faces either dutifully eating their dinner or else ignoring it altogether in favor of telling elaborate stories from their days at school.
Our table is our family’s daily gathering spot. It’s the place where we share groggy cups of coffee, it’s where I work all day, where Faye comes home from school and practices her writing, where Silas sits, under a single light in the dark hours of pre-coffee mornings to eat his oatmeal with brown ‘gugar. Next week, we’ll be spending Christmas morning in our own tiny apartment for the third year in a row and so soon it will be the place where I serve a warm loaf of Cranberry bread, and James pours cups of Christmas morning coffee, and our kids eat chocolate before 8 am. We need these kinds of gathering places, I think, in spaces large and small.
As ever, I’m curious: Does your family sit around a table together everyday, or is your gathering spot someplace different?
Our Bough Table was a gift to our family from Kalon Studios. You can read more about their work and sustainability efforts on their website. All opinions and gratitude are my own.
51 Comments
What a gorgeous table! I love the simple, unique design. I am solidly in the small house/large table camp, too. We bought a table 15 years ago that takes up a lot of space BUT can fit 6, 8, 10, even 12 people sorta comfortably. When we bought it, I imagined how it would become the hub in our house and it mostly certainly has. Daily dining is just one of many uses. It looks it too. But I love it even more now because of all the wear and tear. It still looks great and its like a living document of our family life.
Yes! I love that so much. (And living documents of all kinds!)
Yes, it is beautiful! Nice contrast with the more traditional chairs and other furnishings. We eat dinner as a family nearly every night, cloth napkins, place mats and often candle lit. We take a lot of pride in the extra effort to make dinner feel more special. On the days we don’t–usually when my husband wants to watch a hockey game and eat dinner–everything always feels off: we don’t share the same way, my daughter’s bedtime routine goes less smoothly. I expect we will use it for other functions as my kids grow up and also have letters to practice 😉
We have a very small home with an even smaller dining area but when my grandparents needed to move into care I put my hand up to adopt their dining table. So many family memories have been created around that table in my 38 years I couldn’t cope with seeing it go. It is a mid century modern timber table which can extend to seat 8. Too big for our family of 3 for meals but it’s fantastic for big craft projects and building Lego creations.
At my mom’s house we still have our old dining set from the 60’s–solid wood and battered but still going strong! We ate at least two meals there almost every day, my brother and I did homework, mom cut out her sewing projects, and dad read the paper. Mom and dad are gone now but we have tons of good memories of sitting there together. We still use it for meals and projects to this day. I love it.
So great! My mom and dad still have the table they bought together at a flea market in California when my older sister was a baby!
My family ate at the table every night growing up as o was privileged to have a mother who cooked supper for us every night. It was my favorite time of day, looking back, and I think it helped to foster a healthy relationship with eating and, by extension, a healthier relationship to my body. Conversation lasted well past when the food was finished and I just remember feeling so validated and important as everyone was given space to participate. Not as good at it these days with my own tinies, but we are definitely working toward it. I have the same table I grew up eating at, and it’s long overdue for a refinishing, but at the same time, it is sweet to eat in the company of nicks and paint stains from my childhood as my own children’s marks join in.
I love the power of a table! And having a few extra stools about because there’s always room for someone else at the table. We live in a small Victorian terraced house in England and I’ve gone back and forth over whether our table merits the floor real estate it takes and every time it’s a yes. My daughter is just now starting to not fit under it and I just feel like I can mark time by the water rings on top and the occasional stubbed toes caused by those darn mid century legs which angle outwards.
My parents gave me our trusted family table and chairs when my now husband and I first moved in togethers. It’s older than my little sister and I still can see the scars from where some unruly child put a fork in the wood. . . Now we sit there with our own little girl and it feels really special to me. We have the luck of a big kitchen so we are able to have a big table and a bench to go with it. We cherish our meals together!
So glad for you that you now have such a beauty of a table in your home!
We use my grandparents original solid wood dining table. Thank goodness because we could never afford a solid wood table these days.
Lovely. Doesn’t sound like you’d want to give up your table, but if you’re ever on the hunt we’ve found that solid wood tables abound if you’re willing to hunt around a bit! Since our first apartment, James and I have actually had three different solid wood tables that we found secondhand and very affordably (or for 100% free)!
No table in our house…we sit at the kitchen island. Our home has a dining room and I’ve always hated dining rooms because they’re never used. So we’ve created a family space in the dining room and continue to eat all meals at our kitchen counter that seats three. When people come over, we give them our chairs and we stand/sit on the kitchen counters.
I do use my husband’s childhood dining table as my desk (where I’m typing from now). One summer, while he was abroad, I stripped and refinished it. It’s solid and heavy and a good 30 years old, but it has many years ahead.
Perhaps I’m missing the point, but I’d love your recipe for lentils in turmeric broth. Sounds good.
It’s always a version of this recipe from Julia Turshen: https://food52.com/recipes/63393-curried-lentils-with-coconut-milk
Yes! Our dining room table is the one large piece of furniture in our small old craftsman. I was so excited to actually have some space to fit a larger table when we moved in, I didn’t care if took up the whole dining room and a little of the living room. We put a folding table on the end for thanksgiving which did take up most of the living room and had 20 people for thanksgiving, food on every available surface, lots of excuse me’s and reaching over and under in our tiny space but it was wonderful. We also do dinner together every night as a family and with friends a couple times a week. So much life has happened at this table over the last 12 years.
We just had our 4th child, but when it came for my husband and I to buy a table I told him I knew I wanted a big one. I knew having a gathering place for family and friends was top priority. We eat our 3 meals a day there, my kiddos do their homework and art projects there, read quietly, and we cram as many people as possible on it instead of pulling out another table. No kid table for us, smoosh everyone together to make a cozy night of conversation. We have plans to live overseas and always live smaller, but I plan on bringing along 4 hairpin legs and buying a few pieces of lumbar to create the big table experience wherever we go.
We had a round solid wood table (bought off Craigslist for $60) that was so reminiscent of my childhood dining room table and I remember being so happy when I found it. Eventually though it became a bit creaky and unstable with all the leaves in it and we bought a new-to-us table, also solid wood, also off Craigslist, dining room table that can fit 10-12 people and I really love it too. The first table is now used as a puzzle/work table and sits next to a large window in our living room. I’m happy we were able to find a new use for it and I also love our new table that is much more functional for our family of five and for having guests over.
Whelp, this post brought tears to my eyes. I’m not big on Christmas, but the part that was always most important to me was having both my sons at the table. This year will be different as older son has started his own family and not ready to fly cross country yet with a new baby. I hope that new table does accumulate a few scuffs and scratches as the years go on (but not yet!) as a testament to homework done and years of family meals.
Happy Holidays!
such a beautiful testament to time together, especially as you prepare for the holidays and a huge transition for you all. Since our babe hit the scene we have been sitting at the kitchen island (away from our precious turkish rugs), but in the near future I want to get back to our dining table. But gathering together, the three of us, is essential, despite the chaos that has ensued since our babe’s arrival. Eating together each night is the one thing that hasn’t changed and I’m so grateful for that.
Aside: What square footage are you in now? After moving west we now have a much bigger place than our 475 sqft Philly row home and I have to say… I miss that little space! Though with a fierce (read: loud) little lady I am grateful not to have attached neighbors, to be sure.
Ha! I hear that, pun intended! Our space is just under 500 square feet!
You aren’t by any chance selling your old tables are you ?
We gave the large one away on our local Buy Nothing Group and the other one we’re hoping my mom and dad can put to use in their home for awhile until we might have room for it again!
In our previous house, we had a dining room that was removed and never used. In our home of the last 10 years (a 100 year old, 1100 sqft bungalow), the dining room is right in between the living room and the kitchen and is most definitely our hub! All meals, homework, important conversations, long-term planning, entertaining friends, hosting holidays…it’s all been around this table we bought off Craigslist 12 years ago for $100. Solid wood, custom build, slides out to fit two leaves and seat 12…though our dining room is too small to full expand it so on the occasion we’ve hosted that many people, it slides into the living room area as well. Ha! I love the memories we’ve made around it and look forward to at least a decade more. As I type this at one end of the table, my 6 year old is playing dolls at the other end and my husband is drinking a coffee and reading the news in the middle. It’s the most used spaced in our house.
When my parents divorced my mother took the massive beautiful dining table with her to her tiny new apartment, she loves to cook and entertain. It dominated the room but kept her sane in the years after the divorce, she hosted and hosted in that little space and I too still have a massive table (extends to seat 10) in a tiny Amsterdam apartment because when your kitchen isn’t seperated I think the dining table is the heart of your home.
my partner and i are just two people in our house, and sometimes we eat at the table, but mostly we gather in the living room, on the couch, scooched together. it’s not as charming or traditional and it’s not what i grew up with, but it’s become the place we relax into for conversation and snacks and reading at the end of the day. we don’t plan on children and i wonder if we’ll wind up making our dining room into something else, maybe a room full of books or musical instruments, or maybe we will keep the table in there to serve its lovely purpose of being part way-station, part dinner host, part desk… and so on. 🙂
What a lovely table! We just moved and our new house has a designated eating spot in the kitchen (as opposed to our old house where we all sat around a large kitchen island). My father in law refinished an old round table that someone was getting rid of and it seats the six of us just perfectly. I have noticed that having an actual table, as opposed to the kitchen island as before has leant to nicer dinner times, even if my two youngest still insist on getting up every few minutes. I do also find myself working around it during the day, as well, as the kitchen is a warm and sunny spot, much more fun than my office. 😉
I have such fond memories of my parents’ dining table growing up. I was truly sad when my mom got rid of it a couple of years ago (one of the legs was splitting and she wanted something smaller now that it’s usually just her in the house). My family now has a beautiful hand crafted dining table that officially seats 8 (although more can squeeze in) but I kind of wish I had opted instead for something more sturdy and less fancy and even not as large. Since we’re a family of three, at least half of the table is permanently occupied with piles of stuff (mine, I admit) – in part because empty it just feels too big. However, like many areas where I am trying to figure out how to strike a balance between what means “home” in my memories and what my family wants to prioritize going forward, I like to remind myself that most of the elements of my parents’ house that are essential to my memories of “home” were incorporated when I was 5, 7, 8, etc. No pressure to get it all right at the start.
Hi Erin,
I have a wooden table that extends at both ends that I love. I discovered that it was previously owned by a member of the Italian family that owns the Italian restaurant and pantry shop in my city’s central market; where I buy my passata, tomato paste and vegetarian lasagne. The table is worn in the way tables often are in Italian restaurants and cafes. It becomes a third of the size if I want the floor space, but it’s quite slender extended so I tend to leave it like that. It’s new to me, a private second-hand purchase, and hasn’t seen a gathering yet. Although it’s much smaller than the usual dining table in width I’m sure, with good food and company, that intimacy will be fine; serving can happen in the kitchen.
This is absolutely wonderful. How lovely to be the custodian of this heritage piece!!
Growing up we had a round dining room table that we could pull apart to add up the three leaves to, making it big enough for the extended family on thanksgiving! I loved having a round table as a kid because, obviously, I was always King Arthur and trying to get my family to be my loyal knights (and loyal knights do what I SAY!). My mom still has it and you can see all the pen marks from homework and nail polish chips from me and my sister ignoring her pleas to put down newspaper first.
We have a small house (not a tiny house, just a small one) but when we moved in we made it a priority to get a table that we could gather round as family every night for dinner. We always have dinner as a family and on Sundays we always make the point the point of having a leisurely breakfast round it. Sometimes whilst Im cooking dinner, my daughter sits there and does her homework and many nights when we have friends round we spend most of it gathered round the table rather than moving to the living room where the comfy chairs are. Love a dining table!!
We adopted a vintage mid-century era dining table and chairs about 4 years ago from a rehab shop I used to work in. They were a BARGAIN with my employee discount. It is not a super fancy Danish “brand name” type thing but it is stylish (the right amount of modern/rustic) and has so far stood up to my two messy children and our cats who jump on everything. We are in a bigger space than your apartment but it’s by no means BIG. It’s where we eat dinner every night, where we often entertain, and during the Christmas season, where I like to put sprigs of evergreen branches from our garden and some wee candles. It’s not perfect but it makes me happy every time we sit down there as a family.
That is a beautiful table. I am maybe in the market for a new table? I have a vintage table that I painted due to water damage on the top when we got it. It is a perfect size for my family and is a shape I like, but I want a new look. It does not reflect my style (it never really did) but do I just send it to the Habitat Restore? I have not decided yet. We use our table every day, and try to eat dinner together each night (my boys are teens now, and my husband and I still try to hold this time for our family). Most nights our schedules are crazy so it might be a fast meal of soup together. A moment to put our phones away and connect. I do think the space, the table, is a key part of this.
I absolutely love the table. the simplicity of wood is so beautiful and adding so much than just a furniture to the room!
We built our wood & iron dining table ourselves, and when i say “we” i really mean that my partner mostly did it (; it is just the two of us and still we try gather around the table every single day.
a small, minimalistic apartment dominated by muted colours like beige, white and cream really is just my dream home with my partner in the future. coziness is definitely a priority since we’re both huge homebodies. my parents and i, we don’t live in an apartment but i’ve always preferred the vibe of an apartment rather than an actual house.
When we moved down from NYC to Virginia we inherited my great grandmother’s massive veneer-topped table (which had accumulated a giant steam mark on it at some point from someone setting a hot dish on it which someone else at a later time then attempted to color in in SHARPIE! Which was fine and also hilarious.) It expanded out to seat at least 12 and sometimes we’d set it catty-corner across the room with a card table tacked on the end under a tablecloth to trompe l’oeil for big dinners. We were recently given the opportunity to buy a gently used super gorgeous, super bougie table from Pompanoosuc Mills in Vermont from a dear friend when she moved and it wouldn’t fit in her new house… she sold it to us for like 1/5 of the price because she just “wanted to picture it living in a place where it would be loved” and it is the best and SO amazing and gorgeous and expands to be massive. The old Virginia table made its first-ever trip back up to NYC to find a new home with my mother-in-law, who lost all of her furniture in Hurricane Sandy. I bet that table never dreamed it would now be living in Rockaway! This is super random, but the new table has also introduced me to the weird world of placemats… after using a Silpat at her spot for a year (which is a great hack), we got our almost-3-year old one of these which kinda-sorta matches our other placemats and she LOVES it and it is amazing: https://smile.amazon.com/modern-twist-Rectangle-Placemats-Decoration-Resistant/dp/B00AZZ30QQ/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=linen%2Bsilicon%2Bplacemat&qid=1576778984&sr=8-3&th=1
Oh, Erin – that table is just so gorgeous! Kalon makes wonderful, beautiful products. As for tables. We bought a round, solid teak table early on in our marriage. First we ate there while carefully maneuvering around thesis papers; later we added one child and pulled her high chair up to the table. Then we added a second child, and as they grew, we added another leaf. That table was where we cut out cookies, introduced cloth napkins and candles, wrote thank-you notes. Its where one child used cookie cutters to make Santa and reindeer from playdough; where the other used black permanent marker and wrote a backwards ‘N’ – the first letter of his name; where we talked over projects, recitals, celebrated good things, cried over the death of a beloved pet, etc. And then *poof* – those two kiddos went off to college and their own lives. But we still eat at that table every night – solid, steady, older – it is a source of happy memories!
What a lovely table and space to gather – your apartment is so calming to look at. When my boyfriend and I bought our first house a few years ago, we were given a table from his mother that she had bought with money left to her when her mother died, she often talks about how it makes her feels connected to her mum. She raised her 5 children around it and had it for 30 or more years. It’s pine wood, huge and has a few scratches and pen marks. It looked massive in our tiny living/dining room and took up all the room. We thought about replacing it with something smaller or more modern but as we gathered round it each evening, sometimes for a rushed dinner, sometimes with friends, sometimes with candles, we realised it had become part of our shared story and what was the point of swapping it, when it was already working perfectly as it was. We have since moved and the table came with us. Some of my favourite memories have been dinners with family and friends around it. And I love thinking about my partner’s mother serving dinner on it each evening to her rabble of kids. Dining tables are a special place.
The first thing we bought for our home is a secondhand dining set with six chairs and two leaves, easy to expand for friends and family alike. For now it’s just the two of us (and frankly we’ve fallen into the habit of eating on the couch), but Ilove having the space to share a meal.
We also have a large danish table we purchased off of Craigslist for $25!! It is square but the magically unfolds from the top and pulls out on wooden runners until it meets up. It has brass hinges too! It barely fits in our kitchen (no dining room in this small space!) and is most likely covered in plants and art supplies.
I remember when we first got it our oldest was maybe 2. We wanted it to be perfect forever. My idea of perfect has changed over the years as it has welcomed new family members, pen marks, dents and even the beautiful pattern of a Spirograph circle. The patina of our lives have become etched into this table!
Yes, my hubby and I recently got ourselves a new dining table after having been without one in over a year. Eating our dinner in front of the TV got old eventually, and we’ve used our new table constantly since we got it. We also live in a small apartment. And I think it was your blog posts that convinced me that a decent sized dining table would be ok even if our living room is fairly small. At first, I had an idea that it had to be as small/narrow as possible. We finally decided up with a LISABO from IKEA and we’re very pleased with it. Not compromising on depth was a good move.
Merry Christmas, Erin! ♥︎ Thank you for the inspiration you share.
My wife and I have a very tiny table! Almost six years ago ago we moved into a Tiny Studio as it was all we could afford and two weeks later, on Valentine’s day, my then-girlfriend was home late with a surprise for me: the ugliest little table I’d ever seen. We wedged it into the galley kitchen we felt spoiled to have and it’s been with us ever since! (With a much-needed refinishing after about a year with us.) We have space for a larger table now — but our little one has got so many memories of meals and craft projects and friends over and three apartments we just can’t bear to part with it. It’s the perfect size for two, or for four adults to crowd around and be optimistically called “cozy.”
Our table is circa 1850. It has only belonged to families. It seats two to 12 depending on how many leaves we put in. It’s crossed the Mason Dixon line twice and been propped up with a 2X4 one Thanksgiving. So much history and so many family gatherings around that walnut table and more to come! Enjoy yours.
Would you be willing to share both your cranberry bread and your lentil recipes?
I linked to the lentils in another comment above! The cranberry bread recipe is in the archive; just search cranberry bread!
Love this so much! We also have a big table for our small Brooklyn apartment – the same table my dad grew up using, 100% wood and handmade in Wisconsin, and which I grew up playing and eating on. It’s been refinished and dinged up a million times. It’s heavy AF, moved up and down into many walk-up apartments, but I’m never parting with it. We’re expecting our first baby this summer, and so grateful that another generation will get to grow up at this table.
It looks beautiful. Although, I have to ask – why buy new?
🙂
This was a gift to our family from Kalon. We’ve always had vintage and secondhand tables in the past and this was a wonderful chance to have something made with specifications to fit our particular space and needs and to work with a company that champions slow, sustainable, and thoughtful manufacturing. Not a requirement by any means, of course, but such a lovely chance to work with a like-minded business.
We have a six seater table that is too big for our family of four. It’s often overrun with half finished craft as we have little other space were 20 month old hands can’t reach. I thought this would be wonderful but I actually find it frustrating at meal times.
I’ve made the decision to have a 4 seater round pedestal table made so the table is perfectly sized for meals. We’ll also have a sideboard for storing other things so the table is free. We came to this decision very slowly after just seeing what our family needed.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences on the blog. I find it one of the only places that expresses the thought process behind everyday life. I always visit when thinking about house matters
Ah, totally understand that frustration. I’m definitely team cleared table! (Thanks for the kind words about this space!)
I just happened to land on your blog. I haven’t read much yet (congratulations and blessings to you, New Mama!) but your post about your new table intrigued me. My small home is furnished mostly with old oak furniture. I may have chairs with the same design on the backs. Seeing wood furniture always makes me think about how the wood was harvested, such as your chairs and your wonderful bed. Men lived miserable lives harvesting logs, some lost their lives and many were maimed. Those things no longer happen, but other devastating things do, such as clear cutting forests, or lack of good management of wood lots. And then I thought of the sad plight of the elm trees from which your table is made. I’m a really old lady, and have always revered trees. They are here for purposes we can’t rarely think about. Enjoy your beautiful new table and treasure all your good wooden things – they’ll last a lifetime. And by the way, I raised my three children in a four-room East Flatbush apartment in the 1960’s – 70’s. Love doesn’t need lots of space!!!!
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