The Old Table and the Wild Hair

Yesterday morning, I had my husband pull my grandparents’ old dining room table from the back of the garage, where it has been sitting for some time.  I always intended to refinish it, but the fact that I don’t know the first thing about the process kept me in procrastination mode.  I thought perhaps I could clean it up and put it into service again, but seeing its condition made me angry and very sad at the same time.  Grandma took good care of it while she was alive, but after that it was slowly destroyed. Splatters of dried paint, and a thin coat of glue and glitter covered both the top and the beautiful ornate pedestal base.  I realized that no amount of “cleaning it up” was going to make any difference.  At that point, I got the Wild Hair…

Grandma originally got this table around 1957-1958, after their home on the farm burned down and they moved to town.  She very rarely bought anything new, so I assume the table was second-hand when she bought it.  It was the center of every important (and unimportant) event in our family for the next ~40 years.

It held my parents’ wedding cake…

It held my Aunt’s wedding cake…

It held a squirming 1 year old and all her presents…

It held my Grandparents’ 25th anniversary cake…

It was the centerpiece of my Grandmother’s Card Club meetings…

And more birthday cakes…

And company from far away…

New Years’ celebrations…

And so many delicious Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners were served from it. 

And it holds so many other memories for which pictures only exist in my memory and in my heart… Memories which served to fuel that Wild Hair to which I referred earlier.  The next thing I knew, it had been stripped and sanded -

and today, I hesitantly made a decision on the stain, and got busy -

I am hoping by this time next week, it’s sitting in my dining room ready for Generation #6 to begin making memories.