Happy New Year!

We're a couple days late on the "Happy New Year" message but we were busy relaxing and enjoying our time off. For our New Years Eve celebration, we stayed in our sweats, made dinner, and just relaxed. Anyone who knows me knows that it's impossible for me to stay awake when I'm on a comfy couch and especially when I'm wrapped in a blanket. But, CJ made sure I was awake for the ball dropping. :) Next year, we're hoping to have more of a celebration (maybe in our house??) but we were so caught up in the holidays and house stuff that we didn't get around to making plans this year.

As the house renovations move along, I can't stop thinking about our kitchen table and chairs that we ordered. I am so absolutely in love with them and cannot WAIT to see them in the space. We ordered them a week and a half ago and they are supposed to take 4-6 weeks for delivery. Here's the website photo of them:

When we started looking for tables, the two most important factors were that it coordinated with the rest of the kitchen and that we had the ability to entertain large groups of people.

This table has the best of both worlds. The table top and the chair seats almost match the cabinets perfectly which will really bring in that deep wood color into the half of the room that doesn't have any cabinets. At the same time, we love that the rest of the table is white which will brighten up the space.

As far as being able to entertain large groups of people, this table has TWO leafs! This was the hardest to find in a table because a lot of these types of tables either (1) don't have a leaf or (2) are ridiculously expensive. We first found this color scheme in a furniture store and fell in love with it but it was a round table and didn't have any leafs. We were so disappointed but determined to find that style with the leafs. We searched on what seemed like dozens of websites and furniture stores until we came across this one. You just have to be patient and search until you find a piece of furniture that has what you want at a good price.

One skill we've learned when looking for furniture is if you fall in love with something at Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, or another "big name" store, find out who manufactured that piece of furniture. Chances are, you can buy it directly from the manufacturer at a much lower price!! Who knew??

Do you have a piece of furniture in your house that you are madly in love with? What makes it so wonderful?