3 Reasons Why the Dinner Table is the Most Important Piece of Furniture

It’s the place to gather around to reconnect, talk, share, and eat. It’s the place to organize paperwork, do crafts with friends, help the kids with their homework, pay the bills, host guests, serve a big Thanksgiving turkey or scrumptious Sunday brunch, to sit down and collect your thoughts- it's the only piece of furniture that promotes genuine cohesiveness. 

It’s the heartbeat of the kitchen and the dining room, and these spaces are the heart of the home. This is why we came up with 3 quick (and maybe over obvious) reasons the dinner table is the most important piece of furniture in your home. 

First thing’s first is the time spent around the dinner table. Whether you spend a short time sitting down over a quick snack or all evening laughing around a holiday meal, the dinner table is the center piece of it all.

Secondly, it’s a place for congregation and gathering, and most importantly it promotes togetherness. For a busy family or roommates who are always all over the place, the dinner table is the one piece of furniture that everyone uses throughout their hectic days and crazy schedules.

And last but not least, the dinner table creates memories. Whether it’s the time spent around a weekday dinner sharing the events of the day or the fact that no matter how many people come over for Sunday brunch “you make room”, the memories made around the dinner table will be remembered and cherished for a long, long time.

Building with Reclaimed Wood … AND New Wood Too

Our brand is still about building custom pieces of furniture using reclaimed wood from old barns.  No change there.

But believe it or not, we’re building more pieces of furniture using new wood (also known as “virgin wood”) too.  This is due to many customer requests.

It often makes perfect sense too.  Here’s why.

A kitchen island built for one of our customers (marble top) made with all new wood

Reclaimed wood is now a “high demand” commodity.  Its scarcity alone makes it more expensive than new woods used in furniture making. 

There is also a lot of work that must be done prior to using reclaimed wood in a piece of handcrafted furniture.  Old nails must often be removed.  The wood must be extensively cleaned up.  A lot of elbow grease goes into this whole process and this also adds to its cost. 

Sofa table built with new wood and reclaimed wood

There is, however, another reason why we’re now using more virgin woods in some of our products.  We’ve discovered that new woods are simply very good to use when building farm tables in certain colors.  

Reclaimed wood typically reflects different variations of colors in finished pieces.  In our opinion, this is great.  But the truth is it’s not for everyone.  Some of our customers don’t want their pieces to reflect as many red or brown tones as they do very light to grey ones.  And that is very difficult to achieve with reclaimed lumber.  As a matter of fact, we’ve developed some really neat finishing techniques in our shop that work especially well with new woods. 

With reclaimed wood, one typically sees things such as fine lines and small cracks, which of course add to its unique artisan character.  New wood, on the other hand, can often be used to create nearly identical pieces of furniture.  This fact is very appealing to some of our customers if they’re seeking a certain appearance for their custom-made piece.

And here is another neat thing …

Wine cabinet built with new wood (bottom) and reclaimed wood (top)

We’re now building some pieces using BOTH reclaimed wood and new wood.  For example, a two-piece buffet … with a painted base cabinet built using all new wood (such as poplar or maple) … and a top cabinet piece made with reclaimed wood.

Since the top part will be the thing that really stands out on buffet like that, a customer can have us craft the top with reclaimed wood.  But the bottom piece, which will be painted over, can easily be made out of new wood (instead of pricier reclaimed wood).

Some of our customers really love this approach.

In order to accommodate requests for custom “new wood” pieces we’ve hired a couple of experts -- true wood craftsmen.   They’re really great guys!  And best of all for our customers, each one has over 25 years of experience building custom furniture pieces out of new wood. 

Both were sort of “semi-retired” but are now crafting furniture for us full time.  We’re so glad they’re a part of our FFTB team.  And we’re excited to now able to offer more custom-built pieces of furniture for clients in new wood.

Give me a call if you have any questions about what we might be able to create for your home.

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Please visit the following pages for even more information:

Furniture Gallery Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-barnwood-furniture-gallery.php

Farmhouse Tables Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-farmhouse-tables.php

Customer Showcase Page: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/customer-showcase.php

Have any questions?  Contact us anytime: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/contact-us.php

Farm Tables for Grandparents Saying “No” to Downsizing

I’m often fascinated by new trends.  One of the things we’ve seen at FFTB over the past year are more requests for large farm tables (especially expandable ones) for grandparents.

How can this be, you may ask?  After all, don’t husbands and wives who are semi-retired, in their late 50s and early 60s, often become empty-nesters who then downsize?

Well, often … yes.   Not everyone though.

Large "Grandparent" Farm Table

What many of our customers are doing is actually going against the current downsizing trend happening in the broader culture.  Why?  Because they’re planning for future family gatherings at home … when those children who’ve moved out will then come to visit … with their grandchildren!

As a matter of fact, several of our dear customers recently said almost the same identical thing to me, “Kelly, don’t ever downsize.  The kids will grow up. Perhaps go to college.  They’ll leave.  They’ll eventually get married and start families of their own.  But then, they’ll come back home.  And you’ll want to have space for them so everyone they bring will be comfortable.”

I’ve been hearing more and more about families gathering at grandmom’s home for Sunday dinner … things like that.  I love it.

Another farm table we've recently crafted for grandparents

We’re often seeing this reflected in orders for custom farmhouse tables.  (I’d have to guess at least 20 of the farm tables we built last year were for grandparents who are planning to use them for regular family get-togethers.)  We recently built a farmhouse table for empty-nesters that includes extensions for creating a much bigger table.  It’ll be ideal for their children’s families, who live nearby, when everyone comes to visit.

One grandmom even told me she has a “no technology rule” in place at her home during family gatherings.  Cell phones aren’t allowed.  They all have to be left in the kitchen.  No talking or texting on the phone during the special time set aside for family members to all be together. 

Perhaps this will be a new trend.  Generations gathering together … more often.  Slowing down a bit in order to make time and see one another.

How wonderful that would be!

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Please visit the following pages for even more information:

Furniture Gallery Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-barnwood-furniture-gallery.php

Farmhouse Tables Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-farmhouse-tables.php

Customer Showcase Page: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/customer-showcase.php

Have any questions?  Contact us anytime: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/contact-us.php

How to Choose the Right Table Style - Shape for Your Room?

Round Table with Pedestal Base

Many of our customers assume that all farmhouse tables should be rectangular in shape.  But that shape may not be the best one for their needs.

Our home, for instance, is an old farmhouse with very square rooms.  The best shape for our family’s kitchen table is either square or round because these shapes best match the shape of our particular dining area.  A rectangular table simply wouldn’t be a good fit for our space.

When Are Square Tables or Round Tables Your Best Option?

A square table or round table works well in a square room because it allows each person seated to have enough room to push their chair out and get up and move around.  This also means square and round tables often have pedestal bases instead of legs.  Pedestal bases work very well with these tables because chairs can be easily pushed under them and nobody gets their legs caught on a table leg when moving around.

On average, a 36 inch round table with a pedestal support will comfortably seat 4 people.  A 48 inch table will comfortably seat 6 persons.  A 60 inch round pedestal table will comfortably seat up to 8 people.  And an 84 inch round pedestal table generally seats 9 persons very well. 

Be aware that when round tables grow to 60 to 84 inches in size (6 or 7 feet in diameter) then it gets harder for everyone to reach for food on the table’s center.  So what we typically recommend for these larger tables is that you also get a matching Lazy Susan.  We’ll make you one that’ll be an exact match for your table and it’ll make your piece much more functional and easier for everyone to enjoy.

Round Table with Pedestal Base

We generally like to keep round tables fewer than 65 inches in diameter if they have a single pedestal because very large round pedestal tables tend to become more unstable without extra leg support.  For larger tables, we build a double pedestal base to provide them with that extra support. 

Occasionally we build larger round tables with legs if that is what will meet our customer’s needs the best.  To make such a table look nice, however, we also add an octagon-shaped apron around the underneath of it.  This apron not only helps the table look great, but it also secures the legs and makes the structure very stable.  (All tables that have legs, no matter what style they are, have aprons in order to give them stability).

We typically make aprons 4 inches high.  And we also craft a bead around on the apron because it looks nice.  But we can adjust the width or shape of table aprons in order to give, for example, tall persons more leg room when seated in their chair.  So that is an option you can choose if needed.

Square tables can have either legs or pedestals.  We recently built a very large square table for one of our customers … it was 60 inches X 60 inches in size.  And for this table we constructed a double pedestal in order to give it a very secure base of support. 

When Are Rectangular Tables Your Best Option?

Rectangular tables work very well in rooms that are rectangular in shape.  As far as width goes, we always recommend that a rectangular table be at least 36 inches wide.  The table’s length, of course, can increase proportionally with the room’s length if that’s what the customer desires. 

In general – for a rectangular-shaped table with legs – a 48 inch long table will comfortably seat 4 persons and a 5 or 6 foot table will nicely seat up to 6 persons.  I’d say that the most popular sized rectangular table that is built in our shop tends to be 6 feet (72 inches) in length.  This allows 2 persons to be seated very comfortably on each side with one person on each end. 

Tables that are 7 feet in length can generally accommodate 8 people comfortably … 8 to 9 foot long tables can seat up to 10 persons very comfortably … and 10 to 11 foot tables can generally seat up to 12 people very easily.  (We’ve actually been building quite a few 12 foot tables recently).

What About Trestle Tables?

Trestle tables have not only pedestals but also feet that come off the pedestals.   This allows them to have very stable support while also keeping the pedestals from getting in the way of those seated at the table.

Trestle Table

One of the beautiful things about a trestle, for example, is that it’s usually possible to fit up to 8 persons around a 72 inch long table.  This is because it doesn’t have traditional table legs and there is simply more room for people to sit down around it. 

We often have customers that have banquette seating, where bench seats are already built into the space they want to put a new table.  A trestle table is often a perfect solution for such a situation because it’s easy to for individuals to maneuver around the trestle in order to access any built-in seats.

Trestle Table Base

Trestle tables also offer a variety of seating options.  For example, one seating style that is popular right now is to have seating on both sides of the table … but not on each end.  For this, we typically place support legs at each end of the table so there is more room on both sides.   You can however, install “company boards” on the ends of the table so that it’s possible to seat guests on both ends of the table if more seating is needed.    Such boards allow you to get even more seating on a trestle table during special occasions.

Table with Company Boards

What About Getting Custom Tables & Seating for Unique Situations?

We recently constructed a custom farm table for a beach house in Bethany, Delaware.  Our customer wanted to have a large table that would allow for every member of her large family to be seated when visiting.  The problem, however, is that the room where she was going to place this table was pretty small.  What we were able to do for her is tweak a couple of things.  We placed the legs just a couple of inches further apart than we normally do.  And she ordered narrower chairs so that 3 seats could be placed in between legs on each side of the table.  This gave her just enough space so she could fit all of her children and grandchildren at the table at once. 

Trestle Table with Chairs and Bench

These are the sorts of things we can do to meet your needs.  Please don’t hesitate to give us a call if you have any questions about having a custom farmhouse table built for you … one that will perfectly fit your space.





Please visit the following pages for even more information:

Furniture Gallery Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-barnwood-furniture-gallery.php

Farmhouse Tables Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-farmhouse-tables.php

Customer Showcase Page: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/customer-showcase.php

Have any questions?  Contact us anytime: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/contact-us.php