Happy Memorial Day, everyone! This is an extra special blog post for me today = not only because it’s my San Diegoversary [how the heck have I already lived here 7 years?!] but also because today marks 4 months in our Home Sweet Home – THUS I figured it was about time to start sharing with you some of the progress we’ve made on the place 🙂 starting with our dining room table.
Photo by Henry S. Young
While we were in escrow, #MeandD came to the conclusion that our beloved cement table was far too disproportionate to our new dining room space, so we decided that we would re-purpose said cement table in our outdoor living quarters and then try to find a much larger dining room table that would hopefully seat twelve people. I mean we did buy this house to entertain after all 😉
Photo by Henry S. Young
Then one Saturday [when we were still in escrow] D called me regarding a vintage Herman Miller conference table he had found on Etsy for . . . wait for it . . . $1400?! I automatically knew where his mind was headed. We are both huge lovers of anything Mid-Century Modern. The only problem was I hadn’t imagined us having a wood-top table. The house already HAD so much wood throughout.
So I told him that I needed a minute to think about it [did I mention I was also at Trader Joe’s grocery shopping?] but my designer brain was already at a dead sprint. What if we surrounded the table with all differently colored chairs? Maybe we could even eventually re-finish the top of the table to an ebony color? I quickly called him back and he was down for the compromise. Marriage always = compromise. Lol.
Photo by Henry S. Young
Now it was just a waiting game. The Etsy shop was located in Michigan and agreed not to ship the table until we closed escrow. Yay! We also needed to find chairs and quickly decided upon ordering them from Modernica in Los Angeles – all Eames-iconic in design, two armchairs, 10 chairs, each in a different hue.
Photo by Henry S. Young
And boy, did those chairs come fast. Like really fast. So fast that they arrived the first week we lived there. Now I really wanted the table to get here. We had a dining room full of chairs and no table to eat at. Awesome. Then February came and went AND we got halfway into March. Even better. It quickly started to feel like we hadn’t purchased it at all.
Photo by Henry S. Young
Sure, the table was being hauled all the way from Michigan but this was getting out of hand you know? According to the Etsy shop, the table was in transit. Then that East Coast winter storm happened and come to find out the uShip Driver had gone rogue, leaving the table on the East Coast and pretty much told the Etsy shop that they were going to have to figure it out themselves.
Photo by Henry S. Young
Now bear with me as I try to tell the rest of story as quickly and as unconfusing as possible . . . since we were not happy about the location of our table purchase, the Etsy shop I guess begged this other uShip Driver she knew to leave Michigan, go to the East Coast to pick-up the table and then turn around and haul it to San Diego, California.
Photo by Henry S. Young
Well, while in transit out to California, the new uShip Driver I guess hit a bumpy road and our beautiful mid-century modern Herman Miller conference table fell from the truck’s wall and landed on top of some workout equipment leaving huge gouges in the laminate. I mean seriously is the Universe trying to tell us something?!?
D originally thought we should just cut our losses and get a refund on the table. His too-creative-for-her-own-good wife however had a different idea 😉 thus on the day the damaged table was set to arrive, I invited my friend, Steve Zonce of Zonce Design Studio, over to the house so he could give us his opinion on the state of the table.
Photo by Henry S. Young
I figured that if the laminate was beyond repair we could possibly consider replacing the top with a sheet of Formica to help cover the scars AND that’s exactly what we did. Steve did an impeccable job of steaming/removing the damaged laminate off and gluing/shaping the new 12 foot x 5 foot [$105] sheet of Formica into what you see now.
Photo by Henry S. Young
“Dining rooms are really all about the table and the chairs.” — Candice Olson
Photo by Henry S. Young
Glasses: Dior / Necklace: Target / Dress: Trina Turk / Shoes: Vince Camuto
Photo by Henry S. Young
What do you think of our one-of-a-kind dining room set? I have to be honest = on the other side of all this table “drama” I’m actually glad it all went down like it did. I mean it now looks like we purchased it this way and it perfectly matches the motif we are striving for throughout the house. I simply cannot wait to have our first supper party!
