Sunday, August 9, 2009

Saturday, August 8, 2009

I'm in love with my kitchen table


When J. and I split up over 5 years ago, he moved out of the house we'd bought together several years before. He also left me with all the furniture that we'd bought together for that house. He moved into rented, unfurnished accommodation and promptly went on a shopping trip to Ikea, as he had 'nothing', of course. He always made it sound as if he was being generous, leaving me with all the furniture, 'one less thing to worry about', but quite a lot of the furniture had seen better days and for me, came with emotional connotations. Some of the furniture was still fine, and somehow, despite really wanting something of my own, I always feel guilty about replacing something that hasn't gone wrong or isn't broken. It seems frivolous somehow, unnecessary.
Last weekend B. and I were in a secondhand furniture shop, looking for a chest of drawers for his son's bedroom. When we walked in, we saw this table, which I liked immediately. Most of the time, we have quite similar taste in furniture: simple, plain, unfussy. He liked the table immediately too, and asked what I thought of it, and did I want it if I liked it? Did I want it? I would love it! It took a bit of manoeuvring inside his van (we also bought a chest of drawers and a big dresser for his house) and it wouldn't fit in my own car, so he had to come down to bring it over, but now I have my very own table. And I'm so incredibly pleased with it.
I would really like to paint the backs of the chairs in a similar cream, and don't look too closely at the tiles on the floor - they were there when we bought the house 14 years ago and one day they will be replaced, because they're not me at all. But again, they're not broken so why replace them...
In the meantime, I just stroke my table once more...