Well, with the arrival of our tax refund, we quickly ordered a new dining set. We have owned a This End Up (remember them?) table, chairs and bench since we were married, and it's served us quite well. However, with the addition of every new child, our non-extending only table has become more and more difficult to deal with when we have company. It's going to become our craft table downstairs now. We ordered an unfinished "farm table" that can seat up to 10 people when fully extended. Our dinner group will enjoy dinners much better using real chairs and not benches and folding chairs, huh? Wish me luck on figuring out how to properly stain and paint it. Rather than order chairs unpainted, we went ahead with slightly bigger, slightly more expensive, but fully painted chairs. :-) They arrived on Wednesday when the kids were all home from school (icestorm caused a school cancellation). However, they arrived smack in the middle of our blackout. No electricity. I know there is a way to disconnect the garage door from the opener, but I couldn't remember. So, when the UPS lady carefully approached our door on the icy porch, I told her the boxes all had to come in the front door. She looked at me a little funny and said, "There are 8 of them, and they are big." In my mind, I was picturing 4'x2'x8" boxes (big, but thin). I said, "Oh that's fine". I went upstairs to get on some shoes (since it was freezing out and I was in barefeet). I came down to see that she already brought in one of the boxes. It was HUGE! I am so used to buying cheap assemble-yourself furniture, I was expecting these chairs to be Ikea-style in flat boxes ready for me to assemble. Nope. They were assembled and in VERY large boxes. Say... 4'x2'x2'. By the time she was done, our foyer (which I always thought was a decent size with a double-door closet and hallway)... was PACKED. OH, but the joy that sprang onto the kids' faces!!! WOW! EIGHT HUGE BOXES! Each box could even fit all three kids inside. They immediately moved the boxes into a circle-like shape and threw some cardboard over top. They didn't care that I hadn't removed the chairs yet... they were having a ball with the boxes. I didn't think anything of it. Till I later saw Tommy coloring on them with a green Sharpie... over our new hardwood floors. I freaked out just a little. :0)
So, I went ahead and removed all the chairs... and saw that the kids had even posted "flags" by poking pencils into the boxes and hanging paper off the pencils. Cool idea... fortunately they never "hit" a chair with those pencils. I then explained that their new clubhouse could not exist in our foyer, taking up all available space with no room to walk. So, I threw all the boxes into the basement (imagine the pileup that occurred on the steps...LOL). Our rec-room is filled with huge boxes now, but it's mostly the kids' room anyway. Now if they could only agree on the best arrangement...
As for the chairs themselves, we love them. (Can't beat Amazon, eh? Real hardwood, nicely constructed and FREE shipping!) I checked on the table. It's not to arrive for another 3 weeks, and then I need to stain and paint and polyurethane it. So... maybe by the time Gracelynn arrives, I'll have it ready to use??
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