The Traveling Table

In the early ’90s, this custom tabletop was made by uncle for a space in my parents kitchen.

I grew up with it in that kitchen corner, with built-in benches surrounding it on two sides. More often than not, we were Martha Stewart-ing out on it – frosting cookies, making paper airplanes, or assembling little Thanksgiving place-setting turkeys out of apples, toothpicks, and raisins.

Sometime around high school, my mom changed things around and moved it to the basement where it served us as a laundry table. It was freed up for the taking by the time I moved out of the house, so it traveled with me to one of my first apartments, as my own (with some pretty chairs that, yes, I rehabbed in obnoxious colors).

I didn’t need it when I bought my first house (in hindsight, I’m sure I would have found a use for it but had an insatiable desire to purge), and I think I sold it and a few chairs to a friend for el cheap. Ever since, it’s been passed around a bit. I had no idea where it landed–haven’t thought about it for a second, really–but recognized it immediately as it lay unassembled in my friends’ new home in Jacksonville, where I visited her last weekend. She cited an appreciation for the fact that it’s solid wood, so hopefully however it’s used or refinished will serve her family well for years to come.

Just thought was fun to come across it again, and wanted to jot it down before it was one of those things that completely escaped my mind.