We have been buying tables galore here at CdT. More specifically I have been buying them. And I've only bought two, so I'm not sure galore applies. But I bought them within days of each other for the same room, so that seems a bit galorish to me. Plus, I facilitated in Mom buying a new kitchen table.
First, I bought a table that I thought I could use as my sewing table. I measured my space and the table before I bought it, but what I didn't think of was the weight the extending table arms would bear on a constant basis. Both sides of the table can be lowered, making it a compact cabinet should I ever choose to go that route. The sides can definitely bear the weight of the machines for a period of time (weeks, months), but were they to be the permanent home for my sewing machine and serger, there would start to be sagging/problems. So it's now where I keep my paper cutter. I use the large paper cutter (thank you Dag & Rosie!) surprisingly often. Up until now I haven't had a flat surface on which to store it permanently, so it's been stored against the wall in various locations. I also use the surface when I'm doing a project to lay out my bits to be assembled. It's working very nicely.
And since, when I'm actually sewing, I like having the machine out and easily available, I needed some sort of table for them. So I looked on Craig's List and found this craft table. It's made of melamine, so it's very sturdy and well made. D was horrified as he thinks it's really ugly, but I'm all about functionality. So far it's working very nicely, though I haven't actually sewn* at it yet. I have used it to do some paper crafting and it works very nicely. The stools below also work quite well. The space on the left is Avery's desk in my office so she has a place to do her stuff when I'm in here.
The slots below the table will eventually house some wooden crates I bought. I measured the space and came up with the following dimensions as an ideal container: 11" x 10.5" x 2.75". I thought there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to find anything close to that size. I entered the size into Google and hoped for the best. I found the EXACT measurements I was looking for. Exact. I was just hoping to find some cardboard boxes I could cut down and re-cover, but wooden crates are even better. And the right size. Be still my beating heart.
I also got around to storing my fabric in a way that will allow me to see what I have more easily. I blogged about this method back when I bought the scanner that allowed me to go paperless. It's embarrassing the amount of fabric I have given the small number of projects I've actually done. Also, don't look closely at the fabric since most of it is quite hideous. Some was picked by Avery, some was bought because it was on sale, and some I have no idea how I ended up with it.
* It's been a long time since I've done any sewing. I find I really enjoy it when I do it, but I have trouble starting new projects.
thanksgiving
Mom joined the three of us for Thanksgiving this year. It was a really good Thanksgiving. D volunteered to cook, so he did the bulk of the cooking work. I did the stuffing-substitute and the clean-up. Mom cooked the pie and cheesecake, helped with clean-up, and took Avery out for a nice, long walk whilst D and I napped after eating. Pretty much a darn near perfect Thanksgiving in my book.
For the stuffing-substitute, I decided to go with risotto. That sounds really weird until you eat risotto with turkey and discover that it has the same comforting effect that stuffing does. So we had baked risotto (sooooo much easier than making it the usual way) with our turkey. I do miss real stuffing, but what can I do?
Mom made a gluten-free apple pie. I greatly appreciate it since the GF dough is a pain in the butt for Mom to work with. It's apparently just harder to manipulate. However, both D and I prefer the GF crust to a regular crust, so it works out nicely for us. Thanks, Mom!
ranking
I asked Avery to rank her current four activities in order of preference. I explained that I would try to schedule as many activities as I could, but that sometimes the class times conflict with each other or other activities, so I needed her ranking. Her results:
- ballet (no surprise there)
- kung fu (I was surprised this was #2)
- soccer (I was shocked this was #3 - I expected it to be last)
- gymnastics (I expected this to be #2)
I'm glad she's enjoying kung fu so much.
where is that first table from? I like it.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a great sewing table. It looks sturdy. They told me that you want a sturdy table with solid legs or sides because when you go fast on a machine, it will make the table vibrate and/or jump if it's a light table. that in turn causes wear on your machine, but really, that's minor compared to the annoyance of your machine bouncing up and down while you're sewing. I can only go at about 60% speed on my machine else it starts bouncing up and down on my folding table. (yes, folding table, sigh.)
I'm impressed with Avery's ability to rank. Elise has problems singling out one activity as her favorite. If I ask her what her favorite is, she says: "ballet, piano, art, cooking, swimming." I explain to her that favorite means the ONE that you like MORE than all the rest but she refuses to pick one. She might be able to put them in an order of preference; I haven't tried because I was just frustrated with trying to eke a "favorite" out of her. Finally I said "if there is only ONE class that you have the time to do, which ONE do you want it to be?" and that finally yielded an answer (cooking), after a great amount of distracting discussion about why won't you just let me do ALL classes, mommy?
I got the table in a pop-up shop across from Director Park (next to Fox Tower) in downtown. The shop will just be there through the holidays, I think. Since it's a holiday store, they are just selling what is in the store on display. It's a combination of retailers in the area who run the pop-up shop.
ReplyDeleteThe brand of the table is Bramble. I looked for them online. They only sell to wholesalers, so you have to find a dealer to buy the products. There were a number of things I really liked. The quality of the products also feels quite good given the price range. http://www.brambleco.com/furniture/collection-details.php?id=1965. I paid $555 for the table. It was originally $900+. There's a really nice Bramble desk at the pop-up shop (this one: http://www.brambleco.com/furniture/collection-details.php?id=1915) that I would have bought if I didn't already have a desk I love.