But You Get the Idea

The stage of preparing the kitchen for its closeup continues. I don't have the best before shot, but the after shots of the kitchen do, I think, get the point across.

Since I moved in, I have had this table in the bow window end of the room, with the chairs clustered around it. It filled the space and then some.

Now that they're gone, the room feels suddenly enormous.

Doesn't that make it seem easy? In fact, it hasn't been. I have tried for a few months to find someone who wanted the table, enough to deal with the coming to get it part. At last, a woman decided to take it, and she came last night*, in a Zipcar, to pick it up.
*Initial plans for Sunday night having fallen through, not to my surprise

I took the legs off*, so that we could get it out more easily, but even without the legs, the top still weighed a TON. I knew it was a sturdy thing, but I never had to move it; from the underneath, it seems like it had once had a leaf, and the hardware for that must have been solid steel. The two of us barely got it down the stairs without losing control of it. But happily, no injuries to either of us, or the building, occurred, we got it into the car (and it fit!), and off she went with it, to my great relief. Officially Somebody Else's Problem!
*Bless you, power screwdriver, that part was easy.

Since the table-taking woman didn't want the chairs, I had thought to take them in to Savers this weekend, but on the spur of the moment this morning, I decided to offer them on the local Facebook giveaway site first, and another woman was pleased to take them (three now, and the others when I move)(she has four kids, apparently they're hard on such things), and she even came for the first three this morning. And, wide open space follows!

It made me think of the time I shared a house with a friend in Charlotte. Her previous roommates had had furniture for the living room, and of course they took it with them, so when I moved in, the only thing in the whole room was a large fish tank that they had to come back for. It wasn't an enormous room, but it was so echoingly empty that we called it the grand ballroom.

And that's a little how the kitchen feels. Getting rid of that "island" opened up the middle of the room, and the big table leaving opens up the end. Opens it, in fact, for the smaller table that one of my neighbors is loaning me. Doesn't that fit better?

It's not much of a table, honestly, not that I'm knocking it. Free! Beats buying a small one I won't need for long. But I'll probably get a tablecloth to put over it.

I don't think that, in this case, I'll find one I fall in love with, unlike the wall art and bedspread stories. But I suppose only time will tell. I'll report back.

Now I'm off to rest my back, right knee, and other assorted sore muscles. The Bruins game doesn't start until 8:30, and I'd like to see some of it before I fall asleep. Cross fingers that I sleep long and well!