Our kitchen is quite small. Three people fit into it nicely, but if there are more people, then we start to bump into each other. When we have five or six people, we need to start decking covers in the living room and have a few eat there.

Most of our furniture comes from Mark’s parents. When they moved to Wiltshire, and gave us the keys to the house to live in it, they left quite a few items. The bed upstairs, the stuff in the bathroom, the things downstairs. And the kitchen table.

We only brought in a few things. A hideous sofa that we’ve thankfully sent to the place where ugly sofas go when they die. It was a brown monstrosity with a tartan pattern. We also put in a couple of desks in the ‘office’ upstairs. I say ‘office’, but it’s actually Mark’s old bedroom.

There’s a wardrobe in there that’s full of old things and mementos from that time. Board games, abandoned chemistry sets, old books, and a drawer full of old drawings and notes and school assignments.

There’s also a poster glued to the inside of the door. It’s cute that it’s a footballer, Darren Ambrose, from the 2010s. Ambrose played for Mark’s team Crystal Palace that year. It’s something I can tease him with. “When you put that up, you didn’t know you’d end up with someone without any muscles, did you?” I can just imagine the 14-year old Mark putting it up.

Anyway, our kitchen table is one of those that you can fold down. The surface is a circle, and by folding in a leg into the structure, about half of the table can be folded down. The half-table is enough to seat two people in the mornings. If we need more, we just extend it again. However, the table is worse for wear now. It’s nearly as old as Mark is, and we’ve long thought it was time to replace it.

extendable-dining-table-10
This is heavy, cluttered, and boring. I don’t want this in my kitchen. Unfortunately, I’m married to someone who does. 🙂

That’s easier said than done, with the quite different sense of style that Mark and I have. Yesterday, I leafed through in Ikea catalog, and showed him pictures of tables that I want. My favourite is the one I’ve set as a featured image for this post. Mark’s favourite is the one I’ve included here in the text. His taste is much more Edwardian than mine is.

So, if we do make the actual decision to get another kitchen table for when we move back with Auntie, I can see us getting into another sofa-fight. Who shall win this time?

Who should win?