Of Hype and Hopes

See there. I’ve gone and done it. What I meant to do on Saturday was create a little suspense. Just a little tease to make your breath catch at the back of your throat for the briefest of seconds.

I am insufferably bad at that. I can’t seem to make myself walk away from piqued anticipation. I always have to say that little bit more. And I realize now that I have managed to spoil my own surprise:

Rick and I bought a dining table. And we snagged a set of six chairs from my sister’s garage to go with it.

Ta!-Da!

(Bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?)

Here’s the thing though – two things, actually: 1) this is not just any table, but THE table. The table that I have dreamed of since it was a prototype. My stomach stirs with butterflies every time I round the corner of the kitchen and catch a glimpse of it. I marvel over its lines. I whisper my love to its painted surface. And I wonder, nearly all the time: what on earth is this table doing in my house?

The fact that we were able to acquire it at a great discount because it is slightly, live-ably damaged and (gasp!) an entire year old is really just frosting. I am excessively delighted by that only because I can count on one hand the number of times I have been lucky enough to find just the thing at just the price.

2) Also, I am tickled to have chairs – oak furniture liquidator, overweight version though they may be – that are a glimmer of the shaker spindle chair I was just beginning to realize would be the perfect counterpoint to the lines of the table.

Please forgive me the bragging that's been going on around here. It's all a byproduct of how inept and ungraceful I can be when I am giddy.

So let me add – to soften this up before I get carried away – I do realize my terrific find is a shade less than perfect. Really: a dented table and a set of chairs that only hint at the lithe simplicity of their better-made peers. But I am thrilled – thrilled! – by the mighty coincidence of it all. Although our new additions are part cast-off, part compromise, they betray neither. In fact, they appear not chosen so much as fated. Both parts fit effortlessly together, and into our aesthetics, our space, and our vision of what we’d like our house to be: humble, with a large table. It’s an incredible coup, as far as I’m concerned. One I’m not sure I’ll have the good fortune to repeat anytime soon.

And once our walls are transformed from the hodge-podgery of Wayne Theibaud–inspired colors we painted last year to a quiet, soft cream, the casa de los gigantes will be looking very careful, planned, and cohesive indeed. Hell, it might even start to verge on the tasteful, refined, and grown-up.

How unexpected. How lucky. How delightful.